


when opportunity knocks

by brokendrums



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Break Up, Frottage, Homesickness, M/M, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:25:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendrums/pseuds/brokendrums
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Half way through tour, Louis suddenly becomes single and Niall experiences a reappearance of the huge crush he thought he had gotten over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when opportunity knocks

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to apologise for the amount of scenes that occur in a bed.

When it happens, it happens big. It explodes across the internet and causes a fuss and Louis generally has a melt down. Niall finds out just after the shit storm’s hit and in the way he usually finds out about everything - last and missing half the points to be completely clued in. 

They’re in the middle of America, holed up in a hotel because there’s a cluster of fans out for blood at the front door and camped all around the block. Niall hates when they’re in hotels in a city because the security is always more dodgy and it’s harder to hide from them. He longs for the big fancy hotels at home, a mile or two from the venue and with a few acres of ground around them meaning that they can shut down the whole place and mill about. He doesn’t like to think about it too much though, it just makes him pine harder for home. 

“What’s happened?” Niall asks walking into the room they’ve all made their selves at home in for the past two days. He thinks it originally belonged to Liam but most of the mess belongs to Zayn. Harry’s on the floor, head banging dully on the bathroom door behind him and his knuckles knocking against the wood out of rhythm with his head. 

“Louis,” he mutters like Niall should already know what’s going on except he doesn’t, he’s barely up out of his bed himself. 

“Come on Lou,” Harry yells, far too loud even for through the thick of the door. Niall winces. “Open up and we’ll talk about it.”

“Fuck off Harry,” Louis snaps back but it’s not as tetchy as Louis normally is when he‘s pissed off, just a dull whip of the tongue slightly muffled through the door. 

“What’s happened?” Niall asks again because Louis might be melodramatic at times but he rarely locks himself away like this. He’s more likely to be up and giving hell to whoever’s fault it is. Harry glances up, pulls at the collar of his shirt where it’s drooping down over his collarbones and heaves a sigh. 

“Press finally caught wind.” Is all he says and Niall bites his tongue because he wishes Harry didn’t speak in riddles all the fucking time. 

“Come on,” Harry pleads, banging his fist one last time against the wood. “Come out with me now and we’ll get pissed by the pool and then go pull when we‘re pissed.” 

He laughs brightly up at Niall but Louis doesn’t answer. 

“Fine,” Harry sighs, rolling his eyes for Niall‘s benefit. “When you’ve decided to come out of your cave, come and find me. I‘ll get the beer in.” 

Niall helps him off the floor and Harry smiles at him, not as bright as he’s letting on so Niall knows that at least part of him is worried about Louis. He claps him on the shoulder as if he’s tapping him in but Niall is still relatively in the dark so he isn’t sure how much help he’s going to be. Instead, he slides down into the space where Harry had been and taps the door gently. Three times, just like any time Louis knocks on the side of his bunk before worming his way through the curtain anyway.

“I’m still here if you want me to be.” Louis doesn’t answer him but he doesn’t tell him to go away either. “It’s Niall, by the way.” He might imagine the snort of laughter but he curls into the corner of the doorway and closes his eyes to wait until Louis will inevitably allow him in. 

It takes him twenty minutes and when the door clicks open, Louis shuffles into the space between the door where Niall’s still sitting. He glances down, spotting him immediately and Niall watches as his face crumples just a split second before his legs do, falling into Niall’s lap before he’s ready for it. He straightens out his knees carefully and lets Louis curl into his chest, face planted into his neck where Niall can feel it go a bit wet already. 

“Ssh,” Niall murmurs and rubs his hand up over the knobs of his spine. “It’s alright, I promise, whatever it is, it’s alright.” He still has no clue. 

“It’s not,” Louis shakes his head, sniffing loudly into the soft skin of Niall’s shoulder. It’s kind of gross but Niall just rubs at his back. He curls in tighter and twists a hand in the front of Niall’s t-shirt, pulling it at the collar and stretching it over his shoulder. 

He pets at his neck and scratches at his head and finally Louis looks up at him, mouth pulled into a miserable expression as he meets Niall’s questioning eyes. 

“What’s up?” Niall asks lightly in case Louis really doesn’t want to talk about it. 

“We broke up,” Louis sighs and Niall doesn’t need any more of it spelled out to him. His mind reels as all those ugly, immature feelings he swallowed down when he was seventeen rear their head again. He shakes his head because fuck, that’s a blast in the past. It all feels so long ago, too long to really remember why he was annoyed with Louis having a girlfriend in the first place. He tries not to think of it too much now, but in the split second since Louis’ confession all he can tell is that it’s buffered along with a strong undercurrent of _jealousy_.

“Fuck,” he whispers and Louis nods sombrely, thinking it was aimed at him and his situation and not at the whirlwind whipping through Niall‘s mind. 

“And there’s a thing in the paper and my twitter has exploded with mentions and I can’t look at it. Why are the tabloid things always so shitty about me?” Louis moans and plants his face into Niall’s neck again. “Can we boycott them all? Please?” 

“Did she speak to them?” Niall asks quietly. Half his brain is still trying to focus on his stomach and why it’s tripping over itself in fluttery, wavy feelings while the other half is stamping it down guiltily and telling him he’s being a shit friend right this moment because Louis is clearly stressing out and Niall‘s thinking of himself. 

“It’s only a matter of time,” he groans, rolling his nose against the bone in Niall’s shoulder. Niall’s spine straightens of it’s own accord and his mind reels again, seemingly extending out for miles because What. The. Fuck.

They stay silent for a while, Niall unable to speak and Louis dissolving into another quiet stream of tears that Niall suspects is more about the public aspect of things rather than the actual break up. Or is that his wishful thinking. And when did he start to wish that again. His heart starts to thump and he wonders if Louis can hear it from where he’s pressed up against him but that only makes Niall worry more. 

Niall is screwed. 

*

It takes him two days. Two days until the front he’s putting up cracks a bit. 

They’re on stage and normally Louis is the best out of them all, grin plastered on his face like an armour slathered onto his skin, impenetrable to everything outside. Niall sometimes wants to ask him tips at how he does it so well. 

It’s late and Niall’s still sweaty from the shower and how humid it is. They’re in Texas and it’s mind blowingly hot at night even with the air conditioner on and the window wide open. He had stepped out of his third shower since stage time and started to sweat almost immediately, walking over to his big fancy hotel bed and face planting into it without even drying the water off his body.

The door taps softly and Niall’s spine straightens, fist curling in until his fingernails begin to dig into his palm because Liam’s phone has been ringing off the hook all afternoon and if this is a teenage girl, no matter how hot she might be, Niall’s going to punch her. 

He waits a moment and then there’s two more, quiet and quick and he would recognise the flighty pattern anywhere. He pulls himself out of bed and pads over to the door, not bothering with the light as he pulls his damp towel around himself to open the door. Louis is standing in the hallway, curled in on himself with his shoulders hunched. He’s wearing a hoody and Niall wonders how he hasn’t melted from the heat, he can even see the pink creeping up his neck where his hair has fluffed up. 

“Come on in,” Niall ushers him in quietly and Louis hesitates just inside the door. Niall has to blink a bit to readjust to the light and he suspects that Louis is blind in front of him so he presses a hand to his back, slipping up under the end of his hoody and pushes him towards the bed. “It’s the exact same as your room.” 

“Been on the bus, remember.“ Louis murmurs quietly into the dark but his shoulders relax as he lets Niall navigate him through the mess of his suite. When they get to bed Niall pushes his free hand under the hoody too and pushes the material up over his back and shoulders. 

“Too warm,” he tells him and Louis nods, lifting his arms like a child to let Niall undress him. The side of his face is illuminated for a brief moment by the light in the bathroom and all Niall sees is tired, sunken eyes as he blinks slowly back at him. 

Niall feels a bit wobbly but puts it down to the heat. 

Louis offers him a weak smile when he turns to face him and Niall mirrors it, pulling the sheets down to the bottom of the bed before he climbs in, patting his hand on the mattress to let Louis crawl in after him. 

It’s not the first time they’ve done this and they curve together easily, both of them leaving room for three more on the bed for like when they usually do this. 

Niall can see it in the front Louis puts up. They all can but tour is hard, they’re just entering their fourth month away from home and it’s hard to keep yourself together never mind keeping someone else too. 

“Are you ok?” Niall asks quietly through the darkness and Louis rolls onto his back a bit more so he can stare up at the ceiling. Niall blinks at him, taking in the cut of his jaw and jut of his chin. He isn’t sure if he imagines the way it wobbles or not and he focuses on Louis’ slow blinks so he doesn’t have to look at his mouth. 

“Just tired,” he mutters and when he blinks again he just keeps his eyes shut. Niall nods, the movement jostling the pillow they’re sharing and curls into him again, keeping his hands to himself but close enough that they’re sharing body heat in the already insufferable heat of the room as they try to sleep.

*

Louis grins at fans and slings his arm around Niall during meet and greets. He runs about the stage and messes with Liam but when they jump down a chute or disappear backstage his face falters slightly, a front put on until they’re just the five of them, exhausted in the lift up to their hotel rooms. 

More often than not he crawls into Niall’s bed, curling around a pillow and blinking owlishly at Niall as he gets ready for bed. Niall doesn’t know how he does it, falling asleep in a curled up ball but wakening sprawled over him or taking up half the bed, unfurling limbs as he dreams.  
He starts to loosen up a few week later, once he’s used to the fans mentioning it. Niall knows they’re trying to be sweet when they offer their condolences but it just acts as a reminder and he can see the way Louis will shut down, smile slipping from his face for a second before it’s plastered on, louder and more boisterous than before. 

“I want you to come with me,” Louis confesses to him one night where they’re lying in their bunks. The bus trundles slowly on below them and Niall peeks his eyes open from where he’s cuddled under a pile of blankets, Harry has the air conditioning on full blast and it’s icy in the dark of the bunks. 

“Go where?” Niall asks, head butting his curtain until it slides an inch to the left so he can see Louis properly. He looks half asleep, eyes drooping from the bunk opposite. It used to be Zayn’s but he’s on the other bus with Liam, there was something about a drinking game and sharpie and Niall had said no as soon as Liam had tried to entice him onto their bus, quietly following Louis onto this one instead. 

“Tomorrow,” Louis answers and blinks, eyes flickering to the bunk below him. It’s Harry’s but Niall has no idea if he’s actually in there or not. On second inspection Niall decides that Louis looks nervous, he watches as Louis swallows, eyes flicking back up to meet Niall’s and for once Niall wishes they weren’t on the bus and actually in the quiet of a hotel room so Niall could coax Louis into saying whatever he wanted. 

He knows he’s being ridiculous and that Louis probably is going to tell him here now anyway but there’s something about his little scenario that makes him happy instead. 

“I think I want to go and get another tattoo,” Louis tells him and blinks again down to the bunk below. Niall swallows because he’s never went with any of them get inked. Harry disappears off on his own to do it and Louis normally drags Zayn or Liam along. 

“Oh yeah?” he asks and thinks that this might be really important for Louis. Louis nods, hair mussing against the pillow and he blinks again, drooping further. Niall smiles gently at him instead. “Of course I’ll come.” 

Louis looks relieved and finally closes his eyes. Niall watches him for a moment and the silence between them has gone on too long but over the drone of the wheels and the giggles of Harry and Lou at the back of the bus he can hear Louis’ breathing, loud and clear as if he was pressed up beside him. 

“Don’t think you’re going to convince me to get one though,” Niall murmurs, the need to make light of the situation getting too much. Louis snorts quietly and Niall’s stomach settles as he watches him smile, eyes still tightly clamped shut. “Night Louis,” he whispers and turns so he can’t see him any more and into the dark of his own bunk to finally sleep.

Louis finds him just after dinner. Niall is half way through his second bowl of apple tart, Lux sitting beside him poking her pudgy fingers into his custard as someone talks camera angles around them. Niall’s not listening to them, he’ll do what he’s told when it comes to camera angles but he looks up when Louis squeezes onto the bench beside him, hoisting Lux onto his knee so he can sit pressed thigh to thigh. 

“Hey,” Niall offers him a grin and then a spoonful of his custard. Louis pulls a face but Lux dutifully opens her mouth wide and Niall laughs, zooming the spoon over to her. 

“Ready to go?” Louis asks him and Niall notices that he’s bouncing Lux on his knee, hands jittery on her sides as she fidgets with a toy car on the table. “Paul said he’d get a car sorted.” 

Niall nods. He takes a moment to finish his food while Louis fusses with Lux and passes her off to someone else and by the time Niall’s standing up, making sure he has his wallet tucked in the pocket of his shorts, Louis has a hand wrapped around Niall’s wrist and is tugging him out of the dining room and down the long corridors of the arena. 

“Where are you off to?” Liam asks them when he stumbles across them. Louis hasn’t spoken yet and his fingers are still an iron grip, hot around Niall’s wrist but he whips his head up at Liam’s words and grins at him.

“Off to make Niall a man,” he jokes and Niall rolls his eyes. Liam’s eyes knit together but he smiles anyway. 

“Don’t get into too much trouble,” he calls after them but Louis ignores him, pulling Niall on down the corridor to the door and the bright afternoon light. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to do this after the show?” Niall asks him once Louis has him bundled into the back of a car. There’s a few fans and the car has to drive slowly out of the arena, Louis sinking further down into the seat so they can’t peer inside the windows and Niall watches him from the corner of the eye the whole way to the studio. 

Once they get there it’s clear that Louis’ called ahead. The place is empty and Niall has a glance around all the designs on the wall as Louis signs his paperwork by the counter and goes through what he wants. Basil, the bodyguard who’s accompanied them today sits down in a chair in the corner and they joke for a while about what Niall should get done, ranging from a dragon on his cheek to a piano down his spine. 

“Ok,” Louis announces and Niall spins on his heel. It’s cool inside the studio but Louis looks like he’s sweating already. He’s wearing a loose tank top and it shows off all the other tattoos he’s got, the words etched on his chest and the patches of doodles on down his arms. “We’re ready to go, come on.” 

Niall follows him dutifully, looking around curiously because he’s never joined any of the boys when they go to do this. The artist raises his eyebrows in greeting and Niall finds a seat beside the main chair as Louis gets settled. 

“What are you getting done?” Niall finally asks him because Louis hadn’t taken a look at any of the designs on the wall so he assumes that he must have something already in mind. 

“Zayn wanted us all to get triangles,” Louis mutters and kicks off his shoe. It hits Niall’s knee but he ignores it. “And a few other things.” 

Niall nods. He doesn’t really understand all of the little doodles but he never passes comment because it obviously means something to Louis. He watches as Louis lifts his foot, resting his chin on his knee as the guy takes his ankle in hand and starts to buzz. Niall catches a glimpse of the screw tattoo they all have and thinks again about whether he should get one. They all want him to and he likes the gesture, that so many of the tattoos spread amongst them all say something about their band but if he’s going to get it done, he wants them all to be there. 

Louis clears his throat and when Niall looks back the triangle’s done and he’s holding his hand out, offering up his arm already full of tattoos for the next one. 

“What’s this one?” Niall asks because he doesn’t like the silence stretching between them, broken only by the buzz of the pen. He peers over the guys shoulder and he knows he’s getting in the way but he can’t help being curious. He snorts when he sees it and looks up at Louis. “Corn?” 

“Oats,” Louis corrects him with a small smile. His eyes are trained on his arm, lip caught between his teeth as he bites down against the pain. Niall blinks and sits down, watching Louis’ face change instead of the way his arm gets marked up. He’s looking a bit red and Niall wants to grab his other hand where it’s twisted in the fabric of his shorts but he doesn’t because the guy’s leaning back and Niall can get another glimpse of the four doodle stalks of oat. 

“It means music,” Louis supplies. He looks a bit proud of himself and Niall grins because it’s kind of sweet if you think about it. It looks good settled in with his other ones and Niall’s about to stand up, give him a hug when Louis pulls off his shirt instead. 

“Christ, Louis,” Niall mutters and sits back in the chair as Louis rolls on to his side. “How many are you getting done?” 

“Last one,“ Louis laughs, glancing up at him with sparkling eyes and maybe Niall gets how addictive they can be when he sees him like this, pink cheeked and wincing with pain but at the same time utterly relaxed. 

“Come closer,” Louis murmurs ten minutes later, after the last tattoo has been sketched out and transferred onto his skin because it’s so much bigger than the little doodles on his ankle and arm. Niall only gets glimpses of it, too faint for him to see all the way at the end of Louis’ feet but he can see that it’s no bigger than his palm, just above his ribs and Niall winces in sympathy at the placement.

Louis smiles at him wanly as Niall scrapes his chair over the floor. There’s music beating in from the speakers above them but it’s something he doesn’t recognise and Louis doesn’t look like he’s paying attention either. Niall shuffles up until he’s in close to the chair, knee close to Louis’ head where he’s lying down now. He curls a hand around the fabric of Niall’s shorts and Niall can see where his knuckles are turning white as the buzzing starts up again. 

“Definitely not getting one now,” Niall jokes. He hesitates for a moment as Louis laughs quietly, hardly moving in case he messes up the work on his side before deciding that he’s just going to go for it and pushes his hand into Louis’ sweaty hair, feeling his clammy skin against his palm before scratching at Louis’ scalp. 

“Thanks,” Louis nearly slurs, eyes shutting and Niall watches as he grits his teeth. He keeps his hand there, a warm weight against the side of Louis face as his hand grips Niall’s shorts tighter and Niall doesn’t even glance away from his face once to see how his tattoo is progressing. 

An hour and half later Niall peers at the tattoo, the yellow distinctive under the cling film and makes out the loop of a flower and the point of a thorn. 

“What does it mean?” Niall asks as they climb back into the car. Louis’ drinking out of a huge two litre bottle of water and looking a bit spaced out but he smiles quietly and sits in the middle of the back seat so his tattoo free side is pressed against Niall. He holds out his arm and Niall can see the oats in the late afternoon light. 

“I read somewhere that these mean music, pretty cool right?” he laughs and doesn’t mention the fist sized rose on his ribs. Niall nods, not calling him out for avoiding the subject and stays quiet as they travel back to the arena. Louis is sleepy beside him, curled against him with his cheek to Niall’s shoulder the whole way and when they detach from each other and he gets a moment’s peace before they have to be on stage, Niall Googles it and on the wikipedia page right beside the definition of oats is the description of yellow roses and Niall’s stomach twists as he realises that along with friendship, they also mean a broken heart.

*

A cursory knock on the door wakens Niall early the next morning and when he shifts his hips he can feel Louis pressed up against his back so it isn’t him. He’s just blinking open his eyes when Zayn pushes through the door and on into the room. 

Louis shifts against him but doesn’t make any movement to show that he’s awake so Niall cracks an eyelid to stare in Zayn’s direction.

“Rise and shine,” he grins at them, moving over towards the bed. Niall still has to pack but he doesn’t move, letting the last lingers of sleep stay with him. 

Zayn has other ideas though and he flops onto the bed between them, knee digging into Niall's side as he rolls between them both. 

“This is becoming quite a habit isn’t it?” he asks and pats at both of their sides. “Lou, I thought we had a thing with the bus. You’re giving that up for sleepovers with Niall?” 

“Hey,” Niall protests half heartedly and stretches his back against the mattress. Louis groans into the pillow, curling around himself in the middle of the bed and Niall rolls over so he doesn’t fall off the edge. He knees Zayn in the thigh, denim rough against his bare legs. “Shove over, just because you’re jealous of my legendary cuddling techniques.” 

“Aw bro,” Zayn says fondly. “That sounds so sad.” 

Niall smiles at him and shuts his eyes. “Why are we up so early?” 

“We’re going home,” Zayn singsongs instead. “A whole four days off. Can you believe it?” 

“It should be spent sleeping,” Louis complains from where he’s worked his face into Zayn’s side, just under his arm. Zayn snorts and scoots himself closer to Niall. 

“Yours should be spent in a cold shower maybe,” he mutters and Niall snaps his eyes open, catching Louis’ jerk of shock at being caught and the way his face turns pink. 

“Fuck off,” he glares at Zayn and pushes back so there’s a few inches between them. “It’s morning -”

“I know that I’m hot stuff,” Zayn rubs it in but Niall’s still trying to process the last minute in time to laugh along with him. Louis looks embarrassed and he rolls onto his back on his way to the other side and Niall can’t miss it. The slight bulge in his pants, pushing up the sheet a bit before he cups his hand over his dick and turns his back to them. 

“You are all dickheads,” Louis tells them thickly. “Like you’ve never had a boner in my presence Zaynie. At least I have the decency not to mention it.” 

“Bullshit,” Zayn retorts. “That’s not fair, you never let me live it down for months! Anyway, Harry was watching that clip with the-”

Louis cuts him off and he’s pushing himself up so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, back still to them. Niall wants him to turn around so he can see his face, see how pink he is and if maybe he can see a difference in his eyes. There’s a part of him though that wants him to turn around just so he can see the bulge in his boxers again. There’s an illicit curl of want in his belly and it doesn’t bother him as much as he thought he would.

“And I know exactly what noises you make when you come so don’t act like you’ve never wanked off when we were all in the room.” 

Zayn snorts because it’s pretty clear that they’ve all done that at one point or another, there was no way to get through sharing a room at The X Factor and then sharing every hotel room after that without it. It was a pretty big deal back when Niall was trying to figure out why his stomach kept going funny any time Louis paid attention to him.

“Have fun in that shower there,” Zayn says instead and then rolls over so he can sling a leg over Niall’s thighs, shocking him back to the present. Niall panics for a moment, hands flapping up because he’s half naked and if he lets himself think about the fact that Louis was just pressed up against him and hard he’ll soon be following suit. “Maybe me and Niall should put on a show so you have something to think about?” 

Louis glances over his shoulder and flips them off. His eyes are tight around the corners but Niall can see the amusement in them. He trails his eyes over the pair of them, catching Niall’s gaze for a split second before he blinks and stands up. 

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he mutters and moves towards the bathroom. Zayn cracks another joke about not taking too long but Niall can’t move under his limbs or keep his eyes away from Louis’ retreating arse.

Louis takes his time in the shower and it’s long enough for Niall to throw everything into his suitcase. There’s more of Louis’ things in it than his own but Zayn doesn’t mention it to him so he doesn’t either. He’s just zipping up the bag he’s taking home with him when Louis emerges from the bathroom looking squeaky clean and suitably embarrassed.

Zayn’s long gone, off to find breakfast and wake up Liam and tell half of their crew of this mornings antics but Niall just grins at Louis and sets about gathering his stuff for his own shower. 

“You washed it down yeah?” Niall jokes, only because he feels awkward avoiding the subject. Louis rolls his eyes but his shoulders relax a bit and he returns Niall’s grin as he pulls on a t-shirt that used to be Liam’s. “It’s safe for me to go in there?” 

“Yes Niall,” Louis mutters sarcastically. “The last thing I did in there, after jerking off on the other side of the wall from two of my best mates was wash the tiles down.”

“Good,” Niall smirks. “Don’t want to catch anything, y’know.” 

“Fuck off,” Louis snaps and launches a shoe at him. Niall ducks and giggles, pushing through the door into the bathroom which is still steamy, the mirror all fogged up. He knows that in all probability that Louis didn’t do anything other than wash in the shower but it makes him shiver as he steps out of his underwear and under the spray and as he tips his head under the water he tries not to freak out too much.

*

*

His mum hasn’t arrived yet so Niall sits down into the chair next to his brother and ruffles at his hair. 

“Going grey already bro,” he grins at him. Greg still looks a bit shell shocked, even a whole day later.

He politely tells him to fuck off, smiling familiarly at him before Niall’s being passed a bundle of blankets.

“Watch his head,” Greg says automatically, voice sharper than he really intended. Niall fights the urge to roll his eyes but Greg laughs quickly after, as if he’s just realised how much of a new dad he sounds like. 

“I got him, don’t worry.” Niall means to sound reassuring but it sounds like he’s snapping back in true little brother style. It’s great to be home. He balances the baby between his lap and the crook of his elbow, warm and surprisingly heavy in his arms. He grins down at him as he wriggles about in his sleep, bottom lip pushed out and tiny, tiny eyelashes fanned out on soft pink cheeks. 

Greg hovers close by and his dad laughs quietly in the corner as he watches them over his clasped hands. Niall grins up at him but he can’t look too long because Theo is much more interesting. This is the type of thing he misses when he’s away though and he’s more painfully aware of it sitting here. He’s going to miss his brother grow up into a dad, starting his own family and he’ll miss how Bobby will turn to doting grandfather. He’ll be on tour when Theo first smiles and starts to crawl. He’ll be told over text or crackling phone line when he says his first word and when he comes home for those three or four weeks a year, he’ll just be strange uncle Niall from England. 

He’s lucky his mum arrives then because Niall can feel himself drooping, elbows locked in fear of dropping the baby and head muddling. She bursts into the room, grin on her face and all chat, Stephen slipping in after her. They share a brief smile with his dad before all attention is placed resolutely on the baby.

“Niall,” she smiles warmly at him and kisses his temple, a hand on neck before she’s manoeuvring the baby out of his arms. For the first time in three years he isn’t pinched and prodded and smothered and interrogated like every other time he’s been home for a flying visit. 

Niall laughs to himself as Greg tells her to watch his neck and his mother clucks at him, telling him to wise up as she gathers the baby into her chest. 

Niall has an intense feeling of homesickness then. At the sound of his mum’s laugh and how his dad is smiling in the corner, warm eyes and when Theo starts to cry it’s lovely because all of them duck in to coo at him, none of them tired of the wailing yet. 

For the first time Niall doesn’t want to escape them all and get right back on tour. There’s no itch in his fingers to grab a guitar or to perform or to go back to London because at home there’s no fans, no chaos or crowds or confusion. 

And for a moment he’s absolutely paralysed by it. 

Niall can feel the vibrate of his phone, on silent against his leg. He doesn’t go for it partly because he doesn’t want to be rude but also because he isn’t sure if he can face speaking to Louis at the minute. Not when he’s feeling like this because he isn’t sure what he’d say if did.

It’s in the quiet, sticky heat later that night when Niall can’t sleep he finally phones him back. 

“Y’alright Lou?” he asks quietly once Louis picks up, three rings in and without a word of greeting. 

“No,” Louis mumbles and Niall can’t tell if his voice is rough from sleep or lack of it. It sort of makes his heart jump and there’s a low tug in his belly because he wants to be beside him, be able to run a hand down his back and hug him close when he’s hurting like this. He wants to snuggle into him and have him make him feel better too. 

“No,” Niall agrees quietly. “Me neither.” 

Louis makes a noise and Niall closes his eyes, listening to Louis breathe instead of the clatter of his blinds in the breeze that’s coming in the window. 

“I have a confession,” Louis whispers and Niall opens his eyes to stare into the dark of his room. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Louis confirms. Niall pulls his duvet closer round his shoulders. It’s too warm for it but it offers too much comfort to kick it away. “I think I’ve grown attached to you.“ 

“Oh yeah?” Niall asks as his heart picks up on it’s own. He's missed the lads when they've been on break before but this feels different. 

“Yeah,” Louis says in a breathy whisper. “I don’t think I can sleep here without you. You make it feel -” he pauses to take a breath. “I don't want to say safe because that’s really girly… just I feel better when you’re there, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs because he gets it. He sort of misses fighting over the covers with Louis more than anything else and the way his arms sometimes flops over him to pull him in on its own. 

“Also,“ Louis starts but pauses to take a deep breath. He’s hesitant and Niall’s hit with sudden worry about what he’s going to say. “The other morning, I -” He stops again and Niall can feel the way his spine straightens, air leaving his lungs in a woosh as he tries to forget the feeling of someone up against his back. And when he closes his eyes his mind betrays him because it just replays Louis rolling over in bed, hand reaching down to cover the way he’s pushing out the waistband of his boxers and Niall’s mouth is suddenly too dry to talk. 

“Don’t,” Niall breathes and Louis makes a sound like he’s choking. Niall blinks because he didn’t mean to say anything but he does mean it. He doesn’t want to talk about this and he certainly doesn’t want to talk about it over the phone when they’re in completely different countries. 

“I have a second confession,” Louis tells him quietly and Niall’s gut twists. “This one is ten times more creepier.” He sounds sad, like he knows he’s going to regret speaking in a moment. 

“Mmhmm,” is all Niall can manage and he screws his eyes shut again, tensing his shoulders in his bed for what he’s going to say. 

“I’m at your house.” 

“Oh,” Niall murmurs and grins into his pillow, limbs unfurling under the duvet because he had been expecting something worse. He snorts at how worked up he was getting and he finally hears Louis’ sigh of relief. 

“You’re not creeped out?” Louis asks, half joking and Niall laughs again. 

“No,” he sighs. “I gave you a key for a reason, maybe not a stalker fan but I think I can deal with you sleeping in my bed.” 

Louis laughs and it sounds quiet over the phone. Niall smiles again and rolls onto his back and into a cooler spot in the bed. “Go to sleep Lou, I’ll see you in a couple of days.” 

“Ok,” Louis sighs again. “Sleep tight.” 

He spends the next day with his family and a few friends from home, thoroughly wetting the baby’s head before he catches the last plane back to London. His dad drives him to the airport and they talk football the whole way. He asks about the boys and Niall grins, feeling loose from his dinner of beer and tells his dad that he has nothing to worry about. 

Bobby hugs him tight and Niall’s hit with another wave of it as they stand in the main terminal of Dublin airport. He grips at his dad’s coat, even in the middle of summer and unusually hot heat wave they’re experiencing at the minute and inhales everything that reminds him of home. 

“I miss you, you know,” Bobby tells him and Niall nods into his shoulder, pulling him in tighter. For the second time in as many days he doesn’t want to leave. 

“I miss you more,” Niall tells him truthfully as they pull apart. Bobby gives him a grin and a pat to his shoulder. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.” 

“A few weeks,” his dad promises and watches as Niall slopes off through security. 

It’s dark by the time Niall makes it home and his flat is aglow when he pulls up outside. He pauses outside the door and takes a deep breath. He has no idea why, just as a gut feeling that something’s going to happen. He doesn’t really want to think about it or talk about it because he isn’t sure where his head’s at and he sure as fuck doesn’t know what Louis’ thinking. He wipes his feet slowly on the mat and drops his bag, glancing around the living room before making his way into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Louis grins at him. He’s at the stove and Niall hums appreciatively when he spies Louis making bacon. “Thought you’d be hungry,” Louis explains as he pulls a few slices of bacon out of the pan and sandwiches them between two slices of bread. 

“Cheers,” Niall grins at him and pulls himself onto the bench to eat as Louis sets more bacon onto the pan. “So, good weekend?” 

Louis shrugs and doesn’t speak, focusing on snipping at the bacon so it doesn’t curl in the pan. 

“Good to see the girls,” Louis mutters, eyebrows knitting together. “But they,” he sighs and flips the bacon. “They asked a lot of questions.” 

“Oh?” Niall asks, leaving it open ended so Louis can elaborate if he wants to. He doesn’t though, shaking out the bacon and putting it between a slice of bread for himself. He passes Niall a bottle of beer and Niall shakes his head, kicking his heel off the cupboard below him instead. 

“Something stronger, I think,” he manages to smile at him and lifts his legs for Louis to pull the cupboard open, emerging with a bottle of rum instead. 

“This’ll do,” Louis agrees and he moves over to the kitchen table, sandwich hanging out of his mouth as he grabs two glasses. 

There’s something between them. It’s more awkward and stilted and Niall can feel the tension in the kitchen as if it’s a tangible thing, that he could reach out and run his fingers through it; thick and stodgy in the air. 

Louis pours him a healthy measure, topping it up with a splash of coke he’s found somewhere in the back of his fridge. He brings it over to him and Niall’s fingers brush against his when he passes it to him. He’s still on the bench and Louis glances up at him for a second, thumb lingering near the edge of the glass and he stares for a moment, licking his lips silently before he takes a jerky step back. 

Niall has to close his eyes and swallow down a gulp of his drink to get rid of the taste of bacon in his mouth, drying on his tongue as his mind whirls far too ahead of him. It’s too sweet and there’s too much rum. It makes his teeth feel sticky and he runs his tongue over them nervously as he sets his glass back down on the counter. 

“I just spent the whole time thinking ‘I have to get back to London’,” Louis murmurs and he nearly drains his glass in one gulp. The bottle of rum clacks against the glass as he pours himself another one and Niall sips at his again, trying to keep up but in the back of his mind knowing he doesn’t need to because he can still feel the drinks from this afternoon working on him, as well as the vodka he had at the airport. 

“Just needed to get out there,” Louis snorts. “I spend the whole time away missing my mum and my sisters and once I’m there I can hardly last a day.” 

Niall nods, pretending he knows because for once he doesn’t. He thinks back to his precious two days at home and wishes he was still there.

“And then I get home,” Louis pauses, sighs heavily as he tops up his drink by the kettle and pulls a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket. He taps on the top of the box, offers Niall one and backs his way across the kitchen to the window. Niall shakes his head because he isn’t sure he could move from the bench if he wanted to. “And my house is just so _empty_. She’d been." Niall doesn't need him to explain who he's talking about. "Took everything but nothing that reminded me of her. There’s stuff everywhere that she picked to decorate the house and it just -”

Louis pauses again to light his cigarette. He sighs and pushes the window open and there’s a gust of cool air making Niall realise how hot his kitchen was getting. Louis shakes his head and leans against the window. 

“I don’t miss her,” he tells Niall, meeting his eyes dead on. “And breaking up was the right thing to do.” 

“But,” Niall supplies. He feels frozen because Louis hasn’t talked to him about this yet. He’s not sure if he’s said to Harry or anyone else but the way he’s still avoiding names makes him think he hasn’t. 

“I loved her, you know,” Louis says quietly. “And it’s making everything ten times more confusing because -” 

He looks up sharply again and Niall blinks back at him. He knows he must look like he’s caught in headlights, eyes a bit wide so he fumbles with his glass again to distract himself. Louis exhales, a swirl of smoke rising up before it goes out the window and he stays silent for a moment. 

“So I couldn’t stay at mine anymore,” Louis confesses, quickly changing track and Niall glances back up at him again. “It was messing with my head, but,”

He stays quiet again, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out in the ashtray on the windowsill. 

“But,” Niall prompts and is surprised at how tight his voice sounds. It feels like he's teetering on the edge of the bench, fingers clamped around the ledge to keep him on it. Louis stays by the window and takes another drink. He’s half way through his glass and Niall reaches automatically for the bottle of rum because he doesn’t want to be the soberest one here. 

“But I think being here fucked my head up more,” he answers, stepping away from the window and Niall has to take a deep breath to stop his chest feeling so tight. He’s not exactly sure what Louis is telling him but he knows it’s big so he takes another drink, coughing at how strong it is before slamming his glass down on the counter. "Just made me keep thinking."

He can feel Louis beside him, edging closer until he’s right beside him with only an inch between them. Niall takes another deep breath, thumbing over the condensation on the outside of the glass before he turns his head in Louis direction. 

“It’s fucking with mine too,” Niall mutters and his breath catches at the back of his throat because he’s suddenly pressed so close to him and then there’s no space at all and Louis’ kissing him. 

Niall’s mind reels because even though in some way he had been expecting it, he hadn’t been prepared for the way Louis grips at his arm, pulling his head down to meet the height difference because Niall is still somehow perched on the edge of the bench. He slides between Niall’s feet easily and Niall bites down a groan because he feels overwhelmed, just in the door and tired from the days of jetlag and the travelling he’s done today and now this. 

They’ve done this before, a quick peck on the lips when they’ve said goodbye or a brush of lips when they cuddle sometimes but this is different. There’s intent in this, the slow movement of lips and in the way Louis pulls him in by the waist until Niall can wrap his legs around Louis’ stomach, keeping there between his thighs as he runs a hand through his hair.

Louis’ mouth is hot and quick and Niall closes his eyes because if he tries to think of this as normal, as if he’s just kissing another girl he’ll be able to process this properly. 

Except everything about it reminds him it’s not another girl, it’s _Louis_ , and he’s pulling him closer to him with a strong hand so he comes away from bench, one sliding down his side to grab at his bum, rougher than usual but so, so good. Louis pulls back an inch and Niall follows his mouth, sliding down onto his feet and opening his eyes to remind himself that it's still Louis who’s kissing him like his life depends on it. 

They stumble a bit and Niall’s head swims just for a second. The rum is cloying at the back of his throat and Louis is looking at him, all warm and lovely, skin bright and eyes half closed as he walks them back through the living room and Niall literally has a _fuck it_ moment because if he doesn't now, he never will. 

He ducks in and kisses him again, lips just catching the corner of his mouth. Louis tastes like the cola he had been drinking and just the hint of acrid smoke. Niall can’t help but lick over his lip for a moment, tongue curling into his mouth to chase the taste. Louis groans against him, lips slick as he kisses him back. He clenches his fists in Niall’s shirt, wrinkling it between his fingers when he pulls him in close. 

Niall isn’t really processing it properly. He’s aware of the mechanics of it, of how their lips slot together and that they’re heading in the direction of the big leather armchair by the window. He can feel Louis’ belt buckle against his belly and the drag of denim against his skin and how hot Louis’ shoulders are when he reaches over to steady him. Louis twists his head, kissing him harder before the back of his knees hit the edge of the chair and he drops down into it. 

He still has his hands clenched in Niall’s shirt so Niall bends at the waist, right over Louis as he sinks into the cushions. They both could fit easily into the chair, they’ve probably done it before but that’s too close, too soon for Niall so he stays where he is, elbows locking and palms wide on the arms either side of Louis, who’s looking up at him, eyes growing dark and chest heaving. 

Neither of them speak, just breathe each others air for a moment before Louis’ hand goes to his waistband, thumbing down his tummy for a moment before he flicks open his belt and pulls at the button of his jeans. Niall’s head spins between not believing he’s doing this to wanting to climb up and straddle his thighs so he can kiss him better.

He drops to his knees instead and Louis’ breath stutters. He lifts his hips an inch off the leather, bare feet skittering on the hard wood floors either side of Niall’s knees as he pushes down his jeans and pants, dick springing up mostly hard against his groin. 

Niall gets an image at the back of his eyelids and he’s back in the hotel room, Zayn’s laughter and the pink of Louis’ cheeks and when he opens his eyes Louis is looking down at him again and it’s so surreal that Niall nearly wants to pinch himself. 

He wants to push his head into the v of Louis’ legs but he doesn’t. He’s thrown by the feeling, because where the fuck did that come from? He doesn’t, it’d be too much too soon so he reaches out quietly instead, tentatively curling his hand around Louis’ dick. There’s something familiar yet foreign in the feel of it, wrong in the angle and the weight and heat compared to his own but it feels nice, plumping up hot and hard under each stroke of his thumb along the side, pressing up over the ridge. 

Louis’ breath hitches again and he bucks his hips up, coming away from the leather already sticky with sweat and Niall risks a glance upward, locking eyes with Louis for just a second before he blinks away. It should be more awkward, looking at your best mate’s dick and all but he supposes now he has a hand on it, that time has passed. He’s not really doing anything though, just loosely holding Louis’ dick in his hand and running his fingers experimentally down the soft skin, flushed red and hot.

“I’ve nev-” Niall cuts off because his voice sounds too loud and brash in the silence of the room. Louis grunts a bit and then his hand appears, batting Niall’s out of the way as he takes himself in hand the way he usually likes. Niall stares, eyes transfixed as he squeezes a bit, putting the right amount pressure and building the right kind of rhythm. He watches the way he thumbs at his foreskin and rolls it down, the pearl of pre-come that slicks the way and Niall desperately wants to lick it away, kiss at his reddening skin and suck him into his mouth. 

He just keeps his hands where they are though, spread at the top of Louis’ thighs where he can feel the strain in the muscle, the tensing of them as Louis grows closer. He’s rolling his hips minutely against his own palm, thumbing around the base and using his fingers to push against his balls. His other hand is high on his stomach, pushing his t-shirt up his chest so he can stretch a thumb underneath the hem. Niall knows with the way his wrist twitches he has the pad of his thumb against his nipple and he wants to push his t-shirt up under his armpits so he can see the way it hardens up, red and inviting, another place Niall’s mouth waters to suck.

Louis groans his name at the back of his throat, hips twisting up and Niall watches, mouth opening as Louis comes over himself, thick ropes of white spattering over his belly button. 

Louis collapses back into the cushions and Niall realises how hard they’re both breathing, Niall’s harsh to match Louis’ as if he’s come too. He hasn’t, he’s painfully hard in his jeans, pressing up against the zipper and when he realises, there’s an initial lick of panic before he starts to properly freak out. 

“Gotta go to bed,” Niall chokes out and he sits back on his hunches before he stands up. Louis’ staring up at him wide eyed as if he’s stunned and Niall can’t look at him, eyes jumping from his stare to where he has a loose hand cupped around his dick to the drying come on his stomach. 

“Niall,” Louis starts, sitting forward quickly as Niall stands up. Niall sways for a moment, cheeks heating up as he catches Louis trail his eyes over him. 

He shakes his head to try and clear it but it still feels muggy and Louis is still staring up at him so he jerks back, staggering slightly as he makes his way to his bedroom. He feels hot all over and ridiculously turned on but his head feels like it’s going to explode. He just watched Louis wank over him and he _liked_ it. He feels stupid, of course he liked it, he’s been building up to this for the past few weeks but now, after seeing it, it’s so much more real. 

He falls onto his mattress, groaning into his pillow because it’s something he can work his hips into. When he closes his eyes he can see the slick move of Louis’ fist and the dribbles of come over the lines of his stomach and it makes his hips jump because it‘s followed up with the definite image of Louis‘ face, mouth open around his cry of Niall‘s name and eyes only for him. 

He forces himself onto his back and blinks up at the ceiling. He’s still breathing harder than he should be but over it he can hear the click of the living room light and Louis moving quietly around the flat. Niall worries for a moment that he’s going to follow in after him and he isn’t sure if he could cope with that at the minute, he’s still trying to wrap his head around what just happened. 

He doesn’t though, just pads into the spare room by the sound of it and Niall feels the pressure in his chest ease as he finally gives in to the way the alcohol makes him sleepy. 

*  
Louis is gone when Niall wakes up.

It’s quiet in the flat but Niall hovers by his door anyway, hand stilling on the door handle without actually opening it. He doesn’t remember closing it before he went to bed but he remembers everything else. 

In the clearer light of day - he still thinks it’s fucked. 

He half hopes that Louis will be standing in the kitchen, frying more bacon to soak up the left over alcohol in his system and laughing at how drunk they were last night but when he creeps quietly down the hallway he only finds the empty bottles in the kitchen as a reminder last night had happened, kitchen window still ajar and the dirty frying pan in the sink. Louis’ jeans are lying half under the coffee table in the living room and Niall stares at them for a long moment, wondering mildly what Louis drove home in but he doesn’t dwell on it because his head is banging and he feels his stomach roll as he thinks of the mess in the kitchen so he stumbles back to his room to pack quickly and get out of there before he‘s forced to deal with it. His mum will probably call in before he gets back from America again and he selfishly leaves it for her to sort out. 

He gets to the airport late, half hoping he misses the flight so he doesn’t have to spend eight hours cooped up with Louis on the same plane but when he arrives luck isn’t on his side. 

“Just in time,” Liam grins at him when he slides into the room they’re waiting in, Zayn beside him, half asleep but equally as grinny in a way that tells Niall that they both got laid last night. Louis is curled up in the corner, legs folded onto the chair beside him and snaps his gaze around to him the minute he walks in. 

“Fashionably late,” Niall chokes out because Louis is nearly glaring at him, not looking as blissed out as the other two even though he basically had the same end. He's wearing a pair of jeans that Niall recognises as his own and it unsettles him to think that Louis had been in his room this morning, finding clothes to sneak out in while Niall had slept on unaware. 

“Late night last night?” Zayn laughs from where he‘s lazily reclined over four chairs. “You look hungover.” 

“Yeah?” Niall asks and sits down on the chair. He feels nervous and antsy, so being trapped in the waiting room with them is the last place he wants to be. He can feel Louis’ eyes burning a hole in the back of his head and it just makes him more uncomfortable, shoulders twitching with the effort it‘s taking to just not swivel round so he can glare at him back.

They don’t speak to each other as they get on the plane, in fact they don’t utter a single word the whole flight. Niall launches into conversations with Zayn and Liam so he doesn’t have to think about Louis, mind whirring on in the background as he chats about his nephew, trying desperately not to wish he was at home and away from the awkwardness quietly developing between them. 

The habit quickly becomes the norm as they get back into the swing of the tour. They land in America and are rushed straight into a few promotional interviews where Louis acts too loud and grating and Niall does his best to smile at interviewers and fall back into his role of just being the cute one, letting Zayn and Harry and Liam do the talking because he’s not an idiot and can see that the interviewers are far more interested in them anyway. 

The nights stretch out longer than before with Niall tossing and turning in his ridiculously empty bed, stretching a hand out behind him to search for warm skin or listening for the pick up in breathing when he wakes in the morning. There’s never anyone there and it makes his stomach yearn for something he’s not quite sure of. He can’t quite tell if it’s Louis he’s missing, or if he’s just plain lonely now. 

He finds himself getting more and more jealous of Louis and his attitude to the whole thing, seemingly not bothered that they haven‘t uttered a word other than ‘pass the salt‘ to each other except when they‘re on stage. He disappears one afternoon, coming back lax jawed and sleepy with a cling film bandage around his arm and Niall feels a pang of hurt that he wasn’t invited this time. He looks like he's taken something as he slumps into the corner of the sofa of the dressing room, Zayn following him in with a matching war wound on his leg and simple smile too. They curl up together around a big plush cushion and all Niall wants is a taste of what they get, he wants to wriggle in between them and nip himself over and over to see if he'll get that same drugged out effect. And then maybe, just maybe, Louis will let him back into the club. He’d go and get whatever Louis wanted on his skin, a huge dick on his cheek or ’I love Louis’ on his arse cheek if he just asked.

The thought only fuels his pathetic mind set and he sinks back into his chair trying not to dwell on it. He’s noticing that he’s getting strung out, focusing too much on trivial things and stressing over the irrelevant. He's being stretched to the limit and finding himself in little paranoid spirals of self doubt when he’s left to his own devices at quiet parts of the day. 

One Wednesday, Harry tells him to 'suck my dick you wanker!' And he goes red, tongue curling against the roof of his mouth and eyes darting around everyone in the room, catching Harry's petulant pout and Louis wide eyes in the corner. Lou snorts from where she's pulling Zayn’s hair into a quiff near the mirrors and Niall can't remember for the life of him what they're arguing about to begin with. 

He fixes a glare onto his face and it feels so different to the overly fake smile that's been glued to his gob for the past few weeks. He’s still drawing a blank, mouth dry and throat closing over with the effort of trying not to speak so he stays quiet. 

Harry doesn't push it and looks smug from winning their fight so easily. He grabs the last chocolate muffin off the tray in the corner and oh, yeah, that's what it was over. 

His skin feels tight over his bones lately, stretched until it could nearly break. It makes Niall cautious, less willing to jump around and his stomach queasy like there's something trapped in there, desperate to get out but he doesn’t know what.

Some nights he hacks into the RTÉ player just to hear something, anything near his accent drone on about new legislation in the Dáil today or the new motorway to Derry on the morning talk shows. He even listens to the late night hours of Irish, quick fire and rapid and something completely familiar in the foreign-ness of it. He lets it wash over him, letting his mind go blank and it’s ten times better than phoning home where the conversations are quick and rushed because of the baby. His voice chokes up and he doesn't want to play the guitar and if in the shower at the end of the day he imagines the salty weight of a dick against this tongue, running over the roof of this mouth, maybe gagging on it as he takes it to the back of his throat, he doesn't dwell on it. 

He pulls away from the group but its mainly a reactionary thing because Louis is still there, loud and lovely with them all and staying quiet with Niall. Even that's confusing though because a part of him wants to run away from it and another wants to attach himself to his hip, sew themselves together so he can be the one to make him laugh that smaller laugh, the one that sounds genuine and bright and warm all at the same time. He wants to see him double over until there’s tears in his eyes and he can turn around and grin at Niall as if to say ’you did that’. 

It reminds Niall so much of how he acted when he first met Louis, dying to impress him and tripping over himself to make him laugh. It’s embarrassing now when he thinks back to it, embarrassing that he acted like that and even more so that he didn’t realise at the time _why_ he did it. On the brighter side of hindsight Niall can admit that he had a pretty big crush on Louis and maybe he always had done but along with hindsight comes the realisation that he actually does have a proper crush on Louis this time and that it’s going a lot further than the urge to make him laugh. 

The other boys notice, it's hard not to but they don't say anything. It’s easy to assume that it’s just a bout of ill-timed homesickness and he doesn’t blame them because they're all dealing with that in their own ways too. It shows how exhausted Niall and Louis are by it, that they don’t give a shit who knows that they’ve fallen out. Paul gets worried, like any time he does when they argue but stays out of it, he knows better than to shove himself into the middle of a disagreement. 

His mum comes and visits him when they're in New York, using it as an excuse to get her sister and nieces all together again. Niall skips sound check, not bothering to tell the other lads and leaving the hotel before they can try and stop him. His mum sits him down at his aunts kitchen table and for the first time in weeks he feels at home, even among the American accents of his cousins and the different tasting tea. 

She fusses over him and pets at his hair. His aunt squeezes his shoulder and makes dinner, something that his granny would normally make - warm and hearty even though it’s boiling outside. 

“Right,” his mum murmurs against his ear as Niall starts to help clear the dishes away. His cousin slips past him, pushing his hand out of the way to do it for him as Maura pulls him away from the table. The kitchen is still loud - the boiling of the kettle and clink of more mugs being brought down from the cupboards. Someone wants custard for pudding and the dog starts to bark as his uncle gets home from work. 

“Yeah?” Niall asks her as she pulls him by the wrist through the house as if it’s her own and sets him down on a chair in the living room. He blinks at her, feeling the dread well in his stomach and he flickers his eyes over to the mantle where the photos of his family are so much more interesting than the stern look his mother is giving him. 

“Spill.” She taps his chin and he’s forced to look at her in the eye. It’s scary like this because he doesn’t know what she’s thinking, or how she knows it but she definitely can read him like a book, even after all these years away from her home. She offers him a warm smile and it somehow just makes him worse. 

He supposes this is the part in those movies where he breaks down and tells his mum that he’s gay or some shit but his tongue is acting like Velcro again and he can’t seem to spit it out. 

Anyway, it’s not the discovering that he’s gay bit that’s worrying him - although that still makes his skin itch a little - it’s the getting off with your best mate bit and he isn‘t really sure how he can explain the whole situation to his _mum_ without going into a few lurid details about how he can‘t stop thinking about Louis‘ dick, flushed and thick and inches away from his mouth.

“Do you think I’m a cliché?” Niall asks her quietly, words tumbling out of his mouth so he can distract himself from the image of Louis, naked and splayed out over his armchair. He might have to get rid of it once he gets home.

She frowns at him and Niall frowns back because he isn’t quite sure what he means either. 

“Like forgettable?” Niall asks and then shakes his head. “Do I just fall into a category and that’s it? There’s always one isn’t there?” 

Her frown deepens and she settles down onto her knees in front of him. There’s a perfectly good pouf across the room but she just sets a palm on his knee and Niall stares at it, listening to how his breathing has gone a bit ragged. 

“Like everyone is moving on at home without me and I’m out here, making a dick of myself on stage and just being very -” he cuts off because it’s like he’s just speaking a train of thought now. He knows he’s had fleeting thoughts of this before but he had never paid much credence to it. His mum blinks, keeping her face perfectly blank until he’s finished and he’s reminded painfully of when she sat him down and tried to figure out why her two sons weren’t getting on. 

“Just being very?” She prompts when he gets lost in a memory for a moment. 

“Being very,” he repeats and then swallows. He feels hemmed in, stuck in his own skin and scrutinised for it. He’s a character, he knows that and maybe it’s starting to actually get to him, the grinning and the laughing and even though the majority of it is genuine, he’s starting to feel like there’s a role he has to play, fit into that blond and blue eyed slot within the band so they can appeal to everyone and piss off no one. He can’t drink, he can’t smoke, he can’t swear, he can’t date, he has to apologise for every fucking slip up he makes because he’s the cute one and can’t put a step wrong. They’re five year old girls out there who idolise him and his clean, baby of the group image and it’s terrifying, like he’s got all his eggs in the one basket and he’s teetering on the edge of stamping on every single one of them. “ _Niall?_ “

She stays quiet for a moment. “What’s that meant to mean?” 

Niall clears his throat because it’s suddenly growing tight. It’s like one of those moments where you don’t realise something’s wrong until it’s just there and a huge deal out of nowhere. 

“Maybe I’m just this person that isn’t really me anymore.” 

“Oh, Niall,” she murmurs and lurches forward to hug him. She’s too short to actually cuddle him like she used to but her perfume smells the same and he presses his nose into her throat and swallows it down. He’s being melodramatic, the boys would tell him so but fuck them, they aren’t there right now and his mum is trying to hug the hurt out of him so he lets her.

It only works a little and when she pulls away he nearly wants to blurt the rest out, tell her all about Louis and how he’s messed it all up. 

“Have you said to any of the rest of them?” She asks like she’s reading his mind. “What about Harry? Louis?” 

Niall glances away quickly and her lips thin out as she watches him. 

“Has something happened?” She asks carefully. Niall shakes his head quickly and he knows he’s been rumbled so it’s less of a defiant shake of the head and more of a refusal to discuss the elephant in the room. He bites his lip and glances back at her and she offers him another smile but this time it’s more weather beaten. 

“You can tell me anything you know,” she says quietly, leaning in close enough that Niall can get another whiff of perfume. Maybe he can buy a bottle somewhere and spray the curtains in the hotel with it. “I don’t really care if -” she hesitates and it makes what she says next all the more loaded. “If there’s always one. That boy band cliché.” 

Niall gasps because when he had said that he hadn’t really been thinking of the implications of it and he certainly hadn’t thought she’d pick up on it. Her lips twitch down at his reaction and he can feel his shoulders tense up so she lifts her hand off his knee and sits back on her heels. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” she says quietly and it’s like balm to his ears the way her voice smoothes out. “But that’s ok too you know. If that’s what you’re feeling.” She hesitates again and takes a deep breath. “You know yourself best Niall and you show everything to the people you love and want to know the real you. You aren’t playing a role to them.” 

Niall nods. It feels like they’re speaking in riddles at the minute and his head sort of hurts, a pressure behind his eyes and up his forehead but he nods all the same. It’s getting late and if he sits and thinks any more about it he’s going to psych himself out and never go back to the arena. He wonders for a moment if he could just run away, transfer his money out and go and live in the hills of Donegal or something. He’d go mad with boredom but it sounds so much better than slipping back into his skin and larking about on stage while he tries to figure this all out.

“Come on,” his mum smiles at him, hand squeezing around his kneecap again. “We need to get you back on stage before a search party is sent out.”

Niall laughs, relieved that the issue isn’t pushed further and some of the tension drains out of his shoulders. He’s not sure if he’s in the mood to get on stage but he clenches his fists a few times and follow his mum out into the late afternoon sunshine and towards the car. 

He catches Louis eye as soon as he gets to venue. Harry thumps him on the back and tries to stick his banana skin down the back of his shirt before turning the charm on for Niall’s mum and the troop of cousins that’ve followed him backstage. Niall grins at them, watching as they blush and look shy and he knows that they’re occupied enough for him to go and get ready. 

“Where did you disappear off to then?” Liam asks quietly as Lou nabs him for the chair. Niall sort of wants to shower, get rid of the sweat and put the afternoon behind him but she starts to spray the top of his head with water and he supposes that’ll have to do. 

“Just for dinner,” he mutters and it’s drowned out by the sound of the hair-drier, blistering hot in the thick head in the room. Liam shrugs and picks something up to throw at Zayn who’s nearly falling asleep on the sofa. Louis is beside him and for once he ignores the beginnings of the play fight and keeps his eyes trained on Niall instead. 

Niall meets them in the mirror and his stomach clenches, the stew he had for dinner twisting in his belly and he tries to focus on his mum’s soothing words from earlier, reminding himself that he’s fine and whatever he’s feeling is ok too. 

“You’re coming out after the show? Aren’t you?” Harry asks nearly immediately when the hair-drier cuts out. Lou’s combing through his hair, making it stand up straight on his head and Niall watches as she sprays it and puts putty along it before answering. 

“I’m not really feeling it,” Niall starts to say but Harry’s shaking his head. 

“You snuck out today,” he reminds him and Niall glances up away from the make up brushes and hair products strewn all over the counter in front of him. Louis’ still behind him, eyes keeping a check on the conversation and his mum is fussing with the collar of Liam’s shirt because somehow Zayn’s got banana all over his neck and they all sort of regress whenever one of their mother‘s are in the room, slipping back as if it was their own on and not Niall‘s. 

“Did I miss something?” Niall asks because he didn’t think he was skipping out of anything exciting, just sound check where they mess about for twenty minutes and the tech‘s actually do all the checking of sound. Harry sighs and shakes his head. 

“Everything mate,” he says morosely. “You haven’t had your allotted Harry-time today.” 

Niall grins at him, ducking his head when Lou tells him to so she can trim the back of his neck. “Ok,” he tells his knees because they haven’t been out all together in ages and he knows that Harry’ll only guilt him all night until he caves in. 

They sneak out after the show, Niall’s still damp from his shower but Harry just grins at him, tugging him out of his room by his wrist. Liam tiptoes beside them like he’s James Bond while Zayn follows, not looking like he gives a fuck as he scrolls through his phone, not even sticking close to the wall like Niall and Louis are. Harry stops short at the corner of the corridor. They’re so close to the lifts and Niall can already feel the pull of freedom, he’s sort of glad they’re going out now because he doesn’t think he could sit in a fancy hotel room for another night. Liam isn’t expecting it so he slams into Harry’s back and Niall slams into his in turn. He trips a bit on Liam’s trainers and squeaks out a breath as Louis grabs onto his hips to steady him. 

His hands linger there and Niall’s spine arches on it’s own accord, reacting to the ghost of a breath against his neck and the way the thumb of his right hand strokes his skin slightly, pushing at the hem of his t-shirt before Louis snatches his hands away. 

It throws him off kilter because he had thought he was going well the past few days. With Louis not talking to him and not sharing his bed at night he was able to push him to the back of his mind. It wasn’t really working, Louis was on the periphery, shoving his face into most of Niall’s thoughts anyway but the longing for him wasn’t just as intense as it had been before. It doesn’t matter any more because he can still feel the press of Louis behind him as they make a break for the lifts and all slide in, Liam and Harry pretending to have guns with their fingers and Zayn’s low laugh because they’re actually acting like idiots. 

He makes a deal with himself right there in the lift, suspended between the sixteenth floor with Louis’ arm pressed against his. He’s going to go out and get drunk, so drunk he doesn’t have to think any more and then he’s going to find a nice girl that’ll go back with him to his hotel room and let him fuck her until he can’t think straight -- or think straighter he’s not quite sure about the wording yet.

“You ok?” Liam asks him once they’ve escaped the lift and slipped out the back door. It feels exhilarating to be out without security but then again the club they’re going to is only next door and part of the hotel anyway. 

“Yeah,” Niall forces a smile onto his face and slings an arm around Liam’s shoulder. He grins at him and looking on past, Niall can make out Louis, slight scowl on his face as they push through the door and into the glittery lights. 

It’s loud and hot and just what Niall needs. He drops his arm from Liam and makes his way to the bar, ignoring the fact that Harry’s slipping off to sort out a booth in VIP and Zayn is already glancing around for where the smoking area is. 

Mark’s going to kill him, all of the boys have a rest day tomorrow but Niall has to be up at the crack of dawn to work on his legs. It doesn’t stop him though, and he orders a variety of drinks that he can down at the bar. 

His head spins, suddenly so light-headed after weeks of hardly drinking and he thinks mournfully for the late lunch he should’ve ate more of but what’s done is done and he sinks back into the bar letting the bubbles fizz in his stomach and at the back of his throat until he’s more than pleasantly buzzed. 

He hardly notices her at first because Harry’s on up the bar, teeth flashing as he grins at the little crowd he’s gathering, a round of drinks getting put on his card. The bartender gives Niall one as well so he sips at it until a girl peels off the side of the group and comes to a stop at his elbow. He glances over at her to make sure she wants his attention, looking over her pretty dress and tiny waist all the while pointedly not thinking about how it feels like Harry’s sloppy seconds. 

“Are you having a good night?” he asks her to be polite and gulps at his drink again because his game is off. There’s no enthusiasm and he can nearly see the way she has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Niall tries to think what would happen if he wasn’t one of the most famous people in the club right now, or if his mate hadn’t already bought her a drink and nudged her his way. 

“Yeah,” she grins at him, lips pulling up flirtatiously. She’s pretty and even prettier when she smiles like that, just the hint of teeth before she sets them into her bottom lip, nibbling softly and pulling as she scans her eyes appreciatively over his neck and shoulders. He raises his hand because that’s how he needs to start this off and the barman dutifully reads his mind, setting down two bubbly glasses with shots balanced on top. She raises a perfectly curved eyebrow and grins at him before flicking her shot into the glass. It fizzes and bubbles but she laughs into the beat of the music before swallowing down the froth. Niall follows suit and when he opens his eyes from the wince of it there’s two more glasses of whatever Harry had ordered them all. 

He picks it up for something to do because Niall feels nothing else, no pull towards her, no want building in his gut, nothing about her to distract him from the music or the heat or the alcohol. He feels sort of frozen and that icy push of obligation. She’s got her drink and lost her friends in the crowd so now he’s got to kiss her for her trouble. 

He would normally try it further, ask her name and whisk her off to the booth that’s lying empty now that Harry’s edging into the dance floor and the other three have scampered off into the grotty balcony to smoke against the night skyline. He’d fill her with expensive fizz and order rounds of tequila just so he could chase the taste of salt off her lips and let his hand slip under her skirt. 

He doesn’t bother though because he can’t really be arsed and there’s no anticipation of the night, not excitement to spur him on. So instead he just leans in, overshooting a few inches until his head has ducked down far enough so they’re level and flashes her a grin. She smiles back and then they’re kissing before Niall has to put any real effort into it. 

She drops her drink onto the bar to grip at his arm instead, small fingers gripping around his bare skin so she can pull herself back up to his height. They sway, lips sliding across each other and he meets her tongue because it seems like the process of the thing. Niall doesn’t even set down his glass and when she pulls away he feels bad because she doesn’t look impressed at him.

“Sorry,” he coughs but it’s lost in the noise and then sets his drink down on the bar between them. Her eyes flick between the glass and him before she smiles again. 

“Thanks for the drink,” she says politely and then she’s gone, red dress and dark hair disappearing into the crush of bodies on the dance floor. Niall watches her go, grip slipping on his glass a bit when he picks it up again, gulping it down trying not to think too hard about how he feels about it. 

On one hand he isn’t fazed - it’s just a kiss in a club when he’s not in the mood, no big deal - but on the other it’s beginning to niggle at him. He could blame it on the drink and it’s maybe why he reads into it but there’s a little voice at the back of his mind that keeps helpfully reminding him that even though she’s pretty and polite and perfectly lovely, she’s missing a dick and isn’t named Louis. 

The room’s spinning a bit so Niall pushes through the rest of the dance floor so he can get to the toilets. He has a special bathroom because of the VIP thing and it’s nice and warm and not like any of the other clubs he’s ever been too before this all happened. He sort of wants to cry and he isn’t exactly sure why but all he knows is his eyes are feeling very blurry and wet as he pushes through the door. He doesn’t look around, just keeps his eyes on the closest cubicle and somehow manages to slam through the door without spilling his drink or injuring himself. The lock is more tricky so he forgets about it, sliding onto the floor to sit against the door instead. 

“Niall?” 

“G’away,” Niall says thickly, not loud enough to be heard over the thump of music outside. He doesn’t want to see anyone, he just wants to sit and cry and be close enough to the toilet for when he inevitably needs to throw up.

“Niall,” It’s Louis. Niall can tell over the beat of the music and the roaring of blood in his ears. His stomach rolls but he can’t tell if it’s from the alcohol or the fact that Louis’ talking to him. “Are you ok?” 

“M’fine,” Niall mumbles. He’s not sure if his lips are working, they’ve gone all numb and he pokes at the top one with his tongue before sipping at his drink, grateful somewhere in the back of his mind that he has a straw. 

There’s a creak of a door and then suddenly a hand is enclosing around his ankle, just where his jeans have pulled up so Louis’ thumb can rest on real skin. Niall starts, blinking his eyes open blearily and using a free hand to wipe away at the tears still there. 

“Hey,” Louis chirps. He’s drunk too but he can focus his eyes so he’s nowhere near as bad as Niall. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” 

“I’m fine,” Niall repeats and lets his eyes close. It’s better when he can’t see the cubicle spin or the fluorescent lights or Louis’ concerned face. 

“You’re crying,” Louis points out and tries to wedge his shoulder under the wall of the cubicle as if that would help him get in and closer to Niall. “Open the door so I can give you a cuddle.” 

“No.” He sounds like a child but he doesn’t know if Louis hugging him will make him feel any better at all, his hand on his ankle is hard enough. 

Louis frowns and wriggles more under the wall. He’s going to get stuck but Niall watches him warily as he jams his other hand under so he’s lying fully on his stomach. It’s gross because they’re in the middle of the bathroom but at least it’s the VIP one and marginally cleaner than the one the general public are using downstairs. 

“You’ll get stuck,” Niall mutters and blinks again. The tears feel hot as they course down his cheeks and he doesn’t know how to stop them. 

“Why are you crying?“ Louis asks softly and Niall closes his eyes again, tipping his head back against the wood of the door. 

“I dunno,” he sighs out. Louis squeezes at his ankle and Niall wants to kick him off but he doesn’t. “I guess drinking when my head feels like this was a bad idea.” 

“Head feels like what Niall?” Louis asks and when Niall glances down at him again he’s frowning up at him, eyes all worried and half way to upset himself. 

“Like it’s full of cotton wool.” Which is true. “And so like, busy all the time.”

“Busy?” Louis prompts when Niall stops talking. Another tear drops onto his cheek and he brushes it away impatiently. 

“Like I can’t stop thinking,” Niall murmurs. His throat feels raw and he can taste bile at the back of his throat but he doesn’t remember if he’s thrown up already this evening. “I just want to stop. I just want to sleep.” 

Louis makes a noise and Niall focuses on him again. There’s two of his heads but as he squints they start to amalgamate into one again. “I miss you y’know.” 

He doesn’t mean to say it but there doesn’t seem to be a filter on his brain tonight. It’s gone on holiday, leaving Niall blabbering away his darkest secrets and crying like a baby.

“I miss you being my friend Lou,” he whispers. There’s noise outside and the bathroom’s probably full of people. He wonders for a moment if Louis’ feet are sticking out the other side of the cubicle but Louis doesn’t pay any attention if people are causing commotion. 

“I’m still your friend Niall,” Louis tells him far too quietly in the overloud room and Niall sighs out until it feels his lungs will never inflate again. “I am,” Louis insists. “I love you, I’ll never stop.” 

“Then can you start talking to me again?” Niall asks equally as quietly, voice small and thick. He feels like a child asking someone out to play but Louis’ face pulls a pained expression before he wriggles his free hand under the cubicle too and holds it out. 

“Of course,” Louis manages to smile at him. Niall lets his hand fall off his lap, it’s a bit wet but Louis grips his palm tight anyway. “I’m sorry, I thought you’d want space. For me to leave you alone? You didn‘t -”

Niall sniffs and nods because he doesn‘t want to think about how he had ran away from him. If the roles were reversed, Niall would be upset too. Even though he’s upset now. It’s a circle of never ending upset.

“Hey now,” Louis coos and Niall blinks down at him again. He can feel his bottom lip wobbling again and he needs a drink or a warm bed so he can forget about his tear stained cheeks. 

“I’m ok,” Niall mutters for the final time, squeezing at Louis’ hand where it’s still wrapped around his. “We should go, there’ll be people waiting.” 

Louis nods and waits until Niall has somehow staggered to his feet, palm bracing himself against the wall and the toilet flushing from the sensor. It drowns out the noise of the bar for a moment and Niall wants to stick his head down the loo because maybe it’ll wash away some of the fogginess that‘s settled in his brain. 

Louis saves him from a wet head though when he appears behind him, shirt rumpled and dirty from where he was lying and a soft but still awkward smile on his face. 

“Home time?” 

“Bed time,” Niall confirms and lets Louis walk him out of the bathrooms. He thinks he spots a flash of Liam in the glimmer of lights but Louis tugs him on out to the exit. There’s a bit of a scrum at the cloakroom but they skate past it, pushing through people and out into the night air. It’s muggy and chaotic for a moment with flashing lights and people pushing forward. They’ve been found out and Niall wonders why they left without security in the first place before he gets distracted by the push of people and the cameras being shoved in his face. 

There will be headlines tomorrow about how the pair of them went on a bender and how this is the beginning of the end but in the fuzzy morning, eyes bleary from the hangover from hell Niall can’t seem to care because Louis had held his hand the entire fifty yard walk back to the hotel and had pressed his morning yawn into the space between the pillow and Niall’s shoulder when Paul burst into the room with the paper. 

And somewhere in the middle of it all, that feels more important than anything else.

*

“Harry?” Niall asks, rolling his head on the back of the sofa to look over at him. He’s standing in the kitchen area of the bus, hand half stuck down his pants and the other tapping on the door of the fridge as he looks for something to eat. It’s usually only Niall and Liam up at this time, Louis and Zayn fast asleep in their bunks until they get closer to the venue but Niall suspects that Harry hasn’t been to bed properly yet, he can never keep track of his sleep schedule when he‘s on tour. 

“Yeah?” Harry answers, voice rough as he turns on his heel. He comes to stand in front of Niall, boxers worryingly low as he licks yoghurt off the foil lid, swaying with the rock of the bus and looming over Niall in the process. 

“What do you do when you can’t stop thinking about someone?”

“You never had a crush before?” Harry asks with a grin, tongue lapping at the corner of the yoghurt pot. 

Niall pulls a face. “Not like this. What if it’s one of your best mates?” 

Harry stares at him for a minute, mouth open and peach yoghurt still on his tongue as he processes what Niall’s just asked him. Niall wants to swallow his tongue he’s that embarrassed he actually went through with it. He had been thinking about asking him for a few days because there was a few months a long time ago where Harry fell pretty hard for Lou and couldn’t do anything about it and with Liam trying to beat the bus record for the amount of chin ups in a row down by the driver, now is his best chance to get Harry alone.

“Oh Niall,” Harry finally speaks, swallowing thickly before adopting an overly saccharine sympathetic wince on his face. Niall can feel his cheeks flame, ignite in fire and turn to cinder right there. “I just -” 

He breaks off and actually reaches out to touch Niall’s knee, bending down so he’s sort of hovering on his hunches beside the bench of the sofa. Niall sits stock still, letting his eyes close because maybe if he pretends he isn’t there, Harry will just disappear too. 

“I’m flattered Niall,” he starts again, voice apologetic and so, so wrong. Niall wants the ground to swallow him up and he starts praying for the bus to swerve, crash or careen off a cliff. He’ll take anything at this point.

“That’s not what I meant,” Niall objects, eyes still closed because he can feel the embarrassed frustration starting to melt into a resigned anger because, what the fuck? This isn’t what was supposed to happen. 

“Niall,” Harry sighs and pats at his knee again. Niall’s blood all but boils. “Nialler, honestly, it’s alright.” 

“It’s not alright,” Niall bites out and finally opens his eyes but has to look away because Harry’s throwing him his overly childish doe eyes, eyelashes all wide and fluttery. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.” 

“Look,” Harry sighs and leans forward, pushing his head into Niall’s personal space. Normally it would be welcomed but then he’s forcing himself onto the sofa along with him, slopping yoghurt all over Niall’s shirt as he snuggles in. “I’m so glad that you’re telling me, it’s a big deal, I get it but -”

“Harry, shut up please,” Niall mutters and tries to wriggle out from where Harry’s sandwiched him against the back of the bus. 

“Niall, you know that if I swung that way right?” Harry seems so sincere and it makes it all worse. Niall has to get out of the sofa _now_.

“Oh fuck off Harry,” Niall finally snaps and pushes at his shoulder until he slides onto the floor with a thump. It’s not that much of a fall but it manages to splatter the rest of his yoghurt over his chest and he gets that pout on his face again so Niall looks away from him. “If you’d ever listen for once in your life you’d know that’s not what I was saying. There‘s no swinging anywhere and if it were, it certainly wouldn‘t be fucking swinging towards you.” 

“What’s going on?” 

Niall’s head snaps up on it’s own accord and of course, Louis is standing in the doorway, hair rumpled and one of his old t-shirts on, stretched out along the neck and the design fading into soft cotton. Niall feels flustered and overwhelmed all at once, shoulders heaving after his outburst. Harry looks half way upset on the ground and Louis just looks confused so Niall excuses himself quickly and pushes past Louis to get to the bunks. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Louis asks from behind him but it’s aimed at Harry. 

“He -” Harry starts and then pauses. Niall hates the buses because there’s no privacy, he can hear their whole conversation over the rumble of the wheels and Zayn’s snores from the bunk beside him. 

“He asked me -” Harry pauses again and Niall wants him to shut up but he also knows that none of them can keep a secret to save their life and speaking to one of them is sort of giving them unspoken permission to tell any of the other three, as long as it doesn’t leave the five of them Niall’s usually ok with it. Harry seems torn about telling Louis too, like this is a secret too big to blab around the rest of them and Niall hopes that Harry goes with his gut feeling for once.

“Right,” Louis mutters a bit sarcastically and Niall can just imagine him rolling his eyes. “That really paints a picture, thanks Harry.” 

“Go speak to him yourself then, he’s the one in the middle of a sexuality crisis.” 

And there it is. 

“Fuck,” Harry swears and then corrects himself. “I meant an identity crisis that has nothing to do with his sexuality… honest.”

Niall faceplants into his pillow. Harry has a huge mouth and he hates him, hates him, _hates_ him.

It takes Louis nearly ten minutes to make it back down to the bunks. Niall listens, face still firmly into his pillow as he messes around in the kitchen, the sound of the toaster popping and the kettle boiling, fridge door slamming and the rattle of a spoon in a mug. He and Harry have a whole conversation about which type of yoghurt is their favourite; (Harry - a black cherry one from M&S, Louis - the crunch corner with the little brown and white balls, maybe the strawberry one if he’s feeling particularly healthy) before Louis finally makes an appearance. 

“So,” he starts off, poking a finger into Niall’s arm where it’s lined up along the edge of the bunk. There was no point in pulling the curtain, Louis would’ve just ducked under it anyway. “A little birdy tells me you’re having a crisis?” He pauses a moment and Niall can feel the way all the air is trapped inside his chest. “Of the sexual kind?” 

He tacks on a laugh at the end but when Niall finally moves his head an inch to the side so he can peek over his bicep, Louis’ smile is too tight to actually be genuine. 

“That little birdy doesn’t know shit.” 

Louis frowns and tilts his head to the side and there‘s a faint, ‘hey‘ from the lounge area, painfully reminding him that the walls are so thin. Niall can hardly breathe properly and he’s on his fifth inhale before he realises it’s because he’s trying to not to cry. He feels sort of pathetic but up until twenty minutes ago this was all locked up inside himself and no one knew, and now Harry knows and _Louis_ knows. Zayn’s stopped snoring so he’s probably listening in and Liam will be clued in at some point in the morning, he always is. 

“Hey,” Louis mumbles softly when he catches the distress in Niall’s eyes. “Don’t be like that.” 

Niall shakes his head, focusing on breathing harshly through his mouth instead of talking. He pushes his head back into his pillow because it’s getting too hard to look at Louis and tries valiantly to ignore the way Louis is trying to climb into his bunk. 

“You’ll not fit,” Niall says thickly and he hopes he can just pass it off as being muffled through the pillow. He spreads his legs out in a futile attempt to take up as much room as he can on the bed. “Go away, you’ll break the bunk.”

“No,” Louis mutters stubbornly and Niall’s suddenly being shoved across the tiny space of his bunk. Louis has a hand at his hip and Niall wants to stop him, root his feet in the wood at the bottom of his bed and keep himself in the middle but a bigger part of him wouldn’t mind a cuddle right now so he rolls over a bit to let Louis get up and when he blinks his eyes open all he sees is dark because Louis’ managed to get the curtain closed around them giving them the illusion of privacy even when he can hear them move about outside still.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Louis asks quietly in the cocoon of the bunk. It’s too small for Niall and he inclines his neck back so he can take a lungful of air but it’s only Louis and he has that odd quality about him that calms Niall down. He smells of tea and Harry’s yoghurt and hotel shampoo when Niall pushes his head against his shoulder because he may as well make use of him if he‘s made it all the way up into his bunk. 

“No,” he mutters, clamping his eyes shut and ignoring the way Liam’s calling up the bus to ask Harry what’s going on. It must be the first time Zayn’s up before lunchtime and Niall hates that he’s caused a fuss, no matter how small and how it’s technically Harry’s fault anyway, the big blabbermouth. 

“Ok,” Louis says a long while later, long enough for Niall to calm down a bit and breathe in a few gulpfuls of air from Louis‘ neck. “I’m gonna be here when you do though, you know that right?”

“Won’t need you,” Niall mutters moodily. “There’s nothing wrong. It's not important.” 

It’s a huge fat lie but it doesn’t matter because Louis knows exactly what’s wrong and probably has done since before Niall knew. Louis face drops a bit and Niall feels sick. He didn't mean it like that but Louis covers it up with a wan smile. 

“I think it's really important. And that there’s plenty wrong,” Louis tells him quietly and runs a hand through his hair. Niall feels like a cat and it’s nicer than he thought it could be. “You’ve been locked all up in your head.” He’s whispering and Niall’s hardly breathing because he’s right, of course he’s right. “And I want to know what’s going on in there, so I’m gonna be here when you want to let me in ok?” 

Niall nods, numbing at how Louis knows what to say and when to say it. Louis hums a bit, turning more on his side and hem Niall into the back of the bunk and snuggle into him properly.

“Let’s go back to sleep,” Louis murmurs against him, lips dragging deliciously against Niall’s temple. “Too early for crises of any kind.” 

And Niall tends to believe him. 

*

They don’t even try not to bring it up and Niall can’t tell if he’s pleased or pissed off. 

No one mentions it the next few days and the stilted air between Niall and everybody else is back as they work out what they’re going to say to him. Niall tries to ignore it, throwing himself into their conversations and pushing into their games and joining in on all and every prank that they throw. They start to relax and Niall thinks that maybe they’ve forgotten about it, he hasn’t set anything in stone anyway so it’s nothing more than a rumour really. 

Except they haven’t and Niall starts getting awkward questions that make him flush and stutter because they’re being so blunt about it. 

They get a precious day off and Niall’s up early again, slipping out of bed so he doesn’t wake Louis up. The hotel restaurant had been packed with fans so he had detoured up the stairs again until Paul ushered him into a room with platters of toast. 

“Do you think Stephen Fry is fit?” Zayn asks him as he flicks through his iPad. Niall glances up to check if Lou or Caroline are in the room but it’s just them and his cheeks burn crimson when he realises the questions is directed at him. Zayn’s smug smirk over the top of his iPad tells him more than he needs to know. 

“Dunno mate,” Niall plays it off and goes back to where he’s running out of time on Candy Crush. There’s half a croissant on his lap but Harry nicked the last of the jam and it’s too buttery. 

“I think he could be,” Zayn continues and Niall wants the sofa to swallow him up whole. “It’s probably the power thing as well. Like I think I’d totally have a crush on Simon Cowell, if I was you.” 

“If you were me?” Niall echoes blandly because he’s made a decision not to refute anything they say. He’d also promised himself to stay silent during conversations like this but that part of his bargain clearly wasn‘t working this morning. 

“Yeah,” Zayn grins again and swipes at the screen. “I can sort of see it if you take into account his whole personality thing. I think Perrie’s nursing a major boner for him.” 

Niall rolls his eyes and Zayn laughs, sprawling over the sofa more until his head is resting against Niall’s arm. He understands this though, this is Zayn telling him to wise up and that he can talk about it if he wants. He can sit in the back of the bus with the rest of them and talk about who he fancies and who he doesn’t just like the rest of them. 

Niall appreciates it but he would rather they didn’t segue into the conversation by talking about Simon Cowell’s dick. He thinks about if for a moment and wonders what Zayn would do if he did start talking about it. How if he really puts his mind to it he could ream off a list of famous celebrities he thinks are fit and the majority of them are men. 

His chest goes a bit tight at the thought. What if Zayn laughed at him when he waxed lyrical about how Olly Murs makes him laugh and that the guy who plays Superman is actually really cute. 

He’s saved from the embarrassment when Louis appears at the door, eyes still half closed as Paul marches him into the room. 

“What is it with all of you sleepwalking around the hallways today?” he asks and pushes Louis in the direction of the sofas. There’s a few bits and pieces of breakfast left but Liam mostly cleared them out before he joined Harry in the gym so Niall passes him his half croissant when he folds himself into the cushions between them both. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly, nibbling at the edges of it as he blinks the bleariness out of his eyes. “Mmm.” He drops his head to Niall’s shoulder and Niall stays very still in case he knocks him off, jaw working every time he chews the pastry. 

“We should do something fun today,” Louis says, head coming up as he looks between them. His lips are shiny with butter and Niall wants to lean in and lick the taste off them. He swallows it down and locks it up back in the little box at the back of his head because that was part of the deal too - think less about fucking Louis. 

“Can’t sorry,” Zayn shakes his head. “Waiting on a Skype call from Perrie.” He waggles his eyebrows and Niall cringes. He doesn’t want to know what they get up to over webcam. 

“Sounds like a very active afternoon,” Louis agrees with a lurid grin. Zayn ignores his remark, smile growing wider to piss them off. 

“Is Simon joining too?” Niall asks sweetly because if he can get one over on Zayn he’s going to while he has the chance. Zayn glances up, eyes narrowing slightly but he laughs anyway. 

“Oh what’s this?” Louis asks, never one to let a joke slip by. 

“Zayn and Perrie share a mutual crush on Simon,” Niall grins and Louis smirks back. 

“Cowell?” he asks and nudges Zayn on the shoulder. “That’s kinky Zayn, you may make that call conference!”

“Very modern of me,” Zayn agrees and Niall snorts, looking down at his phone because Zayn could turn the tables at any point here. He doesn’t though and when he risks a look up, past Louis who’s reaching for the last of the breakfast plates, Zayn just smiles at him. 

“There’s too many fans about,” Louis continues his previous conversation. “So it’ll have to be something in the hotel. Unless you want to escape through them?” 

Niall can’t really be bothered and the bags under Louis’ eyes tell him he’s the same so he shakes his head. “Hotel is fine by me.” 

They’re spoilt for choice anyway. The hotel is huge and after Zayn slips off back to his room they disappear downstairs in search of something fun to do. There’s a bowling alley in the basement but they agree that it’s only fun if Harry’s there because he usually breaks something. 

They end up in the swimming pool and Niall doesn’t think of all things that could go wrong as he strips down to his boxers beside Louis and lets him push him in. It’s only later, when they’ve messed about and dunked each other under the water until they could hardly breathe does it dawn on him that being naked, wet and slippery around Louis is doing nothing to make anything better.

“You alright?” Louis asks. He flops onto his back, splashing a bit before he settles into a float. There’s no one else in the pool any more, a lull in hotel residents and Niall is hyper aware of how slick Louis’ skin looks, the water pooled on his chest as he trails his eyes over the dusky pink of his nipples and the ripple of skin and water over the muscle that Louis is slowly developing with his sessions in the gym. 

“Yeah,” Niall nods and shakes his head. He whips himself with water from his hair and he sinks a bit until his chin and mouth are all under the water. He blows out a bubble and Louis laughs, rolling onto his side and splashing about as he buoys upright and kicks his legs to stay afloat. His foots kicks at Niall’s ankle and skitters past him easily under water. It’s easy for Niall to push himself away from Louis, swimming a few feet to the side but Louis just grins slowly at him, with a mischievous glint in his eye that makes Niall worried before he follows after him. 

“I’m not going to push you,” Louis tells him quietly and Niall’s ran out of space, the wall of the pool cool against his back as he bashes against it. Niall nods, eyes transfixed on Louis as he swims in closer. There’s a bit of a ledge and Niall reaches a hand up to hold on, watching as Louis does the same, fingers nearly overlapping on the tiled ridge. Louis smiles at him and right then, Niall knows exactly what’s going to happen. 

“Tell me to stop,” Louis whispers and it’s soft over the lap of the water and whirr of the air conditioning and blast of the showers in the corner. 

Niall blinks and doesn’t move. He parts his lips and Louis pulls himself through the water until he’s right up next to him, both of their feet skimming together under the water. 

Louis’ lips taste like chlorine and water but Niall presses into them anyway. They kiss for a moment, close lipped and chaste and Niall realises that Louis’ trying not to scare him away. It makes his heart thud that he’s being cautious in case Niall decides to get flustered and run away again. 

Niall doesn’t think that’ll happen this time. He digs his nails into the grout of the tiles above him and holds on for dear life, the water trying to make him float up onto his back but Louis presses him in against the wall, bracketing his body with his legs and both his arms on either side of his head to hold onto the ledge too. 

Niall has a free hand and it floats for a moment in the water doing nothing until he pulls it back against him through the water and presses it against Louis’ ribs. He runs a thumb over the skin there but it feels slippery and not real under the water like that so he pushes his hand up further, until it’s out of the water and he can grip at the skin at the base of Louis’ neck. 

Louis groans into the kiss, deepening it by opening his mouth and running his tongue tentatively over Niall’s lips before slipping it into his mouth. Niall lets him, licks back and it turns slow and languid until it comes to a natural end and they’re just breathing into each others mouths. 

“That ok?” Louis whispers and for a moment he sounds unsure. Niall blinks at him. He’s too close to properly focus on so he chooses to take in the way his skin is hot under the cool water and the way his knee is perched against the wall, pressed against his hip to keep himself close. 

“Yeah,” Niall breathes out and he sort of wants to do it again but doesn’t want to push it and ruin the moment. He blinks again, water dripping down his face from his hair and where they’re hidden underneath the ledge. Louis laughs then, a bright sound and loud in the empty pool and Niall’s about to pull him back in again, smile spreading over his face when there’s a noise above them and then a blur before a splash into the water. 

“Cannonball!” Harry shouts from somewhere behind them as Liam bobs back up above the surface and Harry splashes in behind him. Louis kicks off the wall, ankle brushing against Niall’s knee and he gives him one last cheeky smile before he turns, swimming over to tackle Harry before he’s properly up and Niall laughs as the pair of them roll in the water, reappearing a moment later coughing and spluttering. 

He could probably get really used to this - lounging about and letting Louis find him in dark corners and private moments to kiss him breathless. It makes his stomach turn because there's so much to think about, like the band and the fans and how they'd have to hide it, at least for a while. It doesn't make his head feel as sore as it probably did three weeks ago and he takes that as a good thing. 

*

Niall’s wrecked. That brand of tired that makes his eyes roll back in his head and he’s dead on his feet. His eyes are closed but he can feel the presence of someone beside him, hot body heat and a looming weight over him. He cracks open an eye and his stomach drops with dread. It’s Louis and for a split second Niall selfishly wants him to fuck off because he’s too tired to deal with him if he’s going to be all obnoxious and brash and loud. 

He surprises him though, giving him a gentle smile and pushing him sideways by his shoulder so he can squeeze onto the couch beside him. 

“Tired, yeah?” he asks quietly, pulling on his shoulder again so Niall’s back where he was sitting before, except this time his side is pressed into Louis’ shoulder, head easily fitting against the curve of it. Niall nods, letting himself push his cheek against the soft cotton of his shirt. 

It’s too warm to do this really, the air conditioner of the bus working over time and all of them still sticky after their hardly worthwhile dips in the shower after the show but Niall lets him hug him to his side because his eyes aren’t cooperating any more and his head keeps jerking when he goes to drop off. 

Louis smoothes his palm over his forehead the next time he does it, giving Niall a comforting pressure between his hairline and neck. 

“It’s ok,” he mutters quietly to them. “I won’t let them draw on you.” 

Niall shouldn’t trust him. He knows better because Louis is normally the first person to grab a marker and draw dicks all over his cheeks if he falls asleep in a communal area of the bus but he hushes him again, accepts an x box controller from Harry and manages to brush his lips against the top of Niall’s head in all one go so Niall goes lax against him and gives into it. 

He’s not sure what wakes him. Maybe Louis jerking as they play or Zayn jostling him as he squeezes onto what’s left of the sofa after Niall’s stretched properly out across it in his sleep. 

He keeps his eyes closed though because he could easily fall right back again. He’s comfy where he is, moved since he was last awake, more so Louis could play Fifa with both his hands than stopping him from waking up with a crick in his neck. He thinks he’s in Louis’ lap, the soft cotton belonging to the shorts he’s wearing, originally Harry’s but worn nearly threadbare by Louis all tour.

“So,” Zayn says quietly and Niall can barely pick it up over the sound of the TV, the menu music loud and repetitive. “Do you wanna talk about it?” 

He can feel the shift of Louis’ muscles underneath his cheek. His shoulder is wedged against his thigh and it’s easy to tell when he tenses. 

“Talk about what?” Louis asks but Niall can hear the trepidation in his voice. 

“This thing you’ve got going on with Niall.” 

Louis laughs quietly and there’s a click of the controller as if he’s fidgeting with it. 

“There’s not much to say,” Louis mutters quietly. Niall wants to open his eyes and see if Harry’s still here, or Liam. It’s quiet in the backroom but that doesn’t mean anything, Zayn would ask them to bare their dirty secrets in front of any one of them, a fact clearly obvious considering Niall’s supposed to be asleep between them. Niall’s awake now though, alert to the music of the TV and the heat of Zayn’s hand on his ankle and the way Louis’ stomach moves as he breathes. 

He tries to keep his breathing steady but it’s harder now that he’s paying too much attention to it. Above him Louis clears his throat and he can feel it in his belly and against the back of his head. 

“We’re just getting on really well this tour?“ Louis tries but the words sound wrong in his mouth. “It’s nothing different to what me and you do or whatever.“ 

He sounds sad though and Niall hadn’t been expecting that. He nearly wants to hold his breath but he forces it out between his teeth, steady and long.

“Do you really think that?” Oh there’s Liam. Voice lower because he’s across the bus and the music loops again, fifa abandoned to pick Louis’ brain instead. 

It’s quiet for a long moment and Niall forces himself to inhale, exhale and then again before Louis finally speaks. 

“Maybe,” he starts and then takes another deep breath, thighs moving a bit and then the unmistakable weight of Louis’ hand on the back of Niall’s head, palm warm and wide against his skull and his fingers sinking into his hair. 

Niall’s breathing does hitch then and Louis’ knee jumps. He clears his throat again before he speaks. 

“Maybe it is a little bit different,” he agrees but his voice sounds thin. His nails scratch at Niall’s scalp and Niall knows that Louis thinks he’s awake. His heart double pumps at being caught because _fuck_ it’s like he’s spying, listening in on their conversation about Louis’ feelings, feelings he might not be happy with Niall hearing in whatever the fuck relationship they’ve got going on. 

“But it’s nothing to worry about boys,” he continues, fixing a grin on his face and looking at them all in turn. “Nothings going to come of it.” He strokes at Niall’s head and he has to suppress the urge to shiver. “I won’t fuck it up. S‘not important.” 

Niall stomach sinks and it’s like Louis’ repeating his words, echoing them to dig the knife in deeper. He can’t listen them any longer so he makes a show of waking up, twisting his head and yawning, rubbing his eyes and kicking at Zayn’s hands when they go to thumb at his ankle bone again. 

He can tell they don’t buy it, Louis definitely doesn’t. Liam just raises his eyebrows and Zayn smirks. Harry may or may not be asleep himself, tucked into the corner of the booth beside Liam so he doesn’t count. 

“Alright lads?” he asks, attempting to smile but it sort of falters because the pads of Louis’ fingertips press into his head for a moment before he’s shifting underneath him, pushing at him so he can stand up. 

“Thank fuck for that,” Louis laughs but it’s forced. Niall rolls until he’s sitting up straight and he can look up at Louis. It feels like they’re all staring at him and Niall wants to reach out and pull him back down again. Louis looks at them all and he looks upset for a moment, eyes a bit too wide and his fingers curling into a fist now at his side. “Thought my legs were going to go numb there, never be able to walk again would I?” 

“Not like you couldn’t push me off.” Niall tries to make it sound jokey but it falls flat and Louis rips his eyes from his. 

He flickers his gaze around them all again, skipping Niall out entirely as he takes a step towards the curtain to the rest of the bus. “That’s it, pow wow over. We all need our beauty sleep.” 

Zayn gets to his feet slowly, Liam following suit and nudging Harry awake. He blinks blearily at them before rolling back into his ball, hair sticking up out of his make shift headband and Niall swallows down regret because that’s what someone looks like when they wake up in the sticky heat of the back of the bus, not the over exaggerated yawn display Niall put on. 

It’s not that there’s been any words exchanged between them, or what Niall overheard was even that big a deal but the air feels different between them. Louis ducks out of the room awkwardly and Niall feels half stunned at how odd he’s acting now. He didn’t seem all that bothered when he started to stroke his hair. 

Zayn pats him once on the shoulder and Liam gives him an awkward jerk of the head before they disappear through the curtain and get ready for bed. They’re on a highway somewhere, speeding down a straight road as if they weren’t even moving at all. He considers for a moment rolling over and sleeping there or curling into Harry because he sometimes like to act like a human blanket when he sleeps and it’s nice to fall asleep tangled up with someone but that only brings his thoughts right back to Louis, Louis who’s disappeared into the bathroom, a crack of yellow light spilling into the gangway of the bus. 

“Louis?” he asks quietly at the doorway, fingers tapping on the wood in a semblance of a knock. He knows that Louis’ heard him because there’s a thump from inside the small space, the sound of the tap and then the slow slide of the door opening. 

“Yeah?” he asks, eyes jerking away from him seconds after he first looks. He fiddles with the toothpaste before shoving his toothbrush into his mouth so he doesn’t have to speak. Niall feels the prickle of air conditioning at the back of his neck and he knows that Liam is listening in from where he’s slowly pulling on a pair of sleep pants near the front of the bus. 

“Maybe it’s more important than I thought?” he says it quietly but the conviction behind it is real. Louis eyes widen a bit, hand falling down by his side but he doesn’t say anything. 

Niall can see the shadow of someone watching them, peering in from the kitchen but he doesn’t care. They can all watch if they really want to, he’s not that embarrassed any more, scared yes, but he’s not ashamed. 

He ducks in, a hand going automatically up to cradle the side of Louis’ face and he kisses him quickly. He gets half a mouthful of foam for his trouble but he swallows it down with a wince and kisses Louis properly until he feels him start to respond. A hand going round his waist where his toothbrush digs into his back and the other to the wrist at his head. 

When they pull apart they both stare at each other and Niall isn’t sure what to do. That’s twice this has happened now so he takes a step back, back into his own space before turning back towards his bunk. He can hear Louis take a deep breath behind them and then the slow sound of Louis beginning to brush his teeth again. 

“Night Zayn,” Niall murmurs once he gets to his bunk because he knows he’s not asleep. Zayn cracks an eye open in response and offers him a warm smile that somehow does everything to reassure him he didn’t just make a mistake. 

Louis finishes up in the bathroom as Niall kicks out of his jeans and he passes him quietly on the aisle, hand brushing across his hip and back deliberately as he shimmies down to his own bunk. 

Niall’s breath is tight as he climbs up and he nearly laughs at himself because they’re _flirting_ and if he had asked himself this a few weeks ago, back when they were in New York and Niall was wondering what would happen between them now that they’d crossed a line, if it would ever end up here, he would’ve laughed because it all felt so hopeless back then. 

*

“I think I’m ready to talk about it now,” Niall whispers pushing the quilt aside so he can slip in underneath. 

“Oh yeah?” Louis mutters and rolls onto his front. He’s too asleep to really know what’s going on but his hand opens and closes where it’s lying on the empty space on the mattress beside him so Niall edges closer until Louis can pat clumsily at his side. 

It makes him shiver and it gives Niall the confidence to stay there, tuck the quilt around himself and make himself comfortable beside Louis’ sleeping side. Louis mumbles into the dark before he’s rolling over and attaching himself to Niall’s side like a limpet. Niall’s used to it, of course he is but it makes him smile, finally letting the tension drain out of his shoulders as he relaxes into it, turning his head so it’s tucked in close to Louis’. 

He dozes for a while, not really falling into a proper sleep so when Louis rolls over just after six am, nudging him with his forehead and a warm palm spreading over his chest, Niall wakes up easily. 

“Thought that was part of my dream,” Louis admits quietly as if talking too loudly would ruin the quiet of morning. There’s sun out there somewhere but the blinds cut most of it off

He looks pretty in the dim light, warm and soft around the edges with his hair all fluffy at the front. He must have went to bed with it wet after his shower and Niall slides his ear across the pillow until they’re nose to nose. 

“Not dreaming now,” Niall murmurs. He feels too content to start talking about things. He doesn’t want to bring up how his stomach flips when he sees Louis like this or how his heart squeezes when he thinks about him or how his knees tremble every time he looks across that stage at night to see him there. 

“No,” Louis agrees and closes the gap between them, kissing him sweetly on the lips. They mouth at each other, lazy at first. It’s nice to do this and Niall could be lulled back to sleep, the soft move of lips and the hint of tongue. But Louis doesn’t give him the chance before he moves his leg between Niall’s thighs easily and kisses him that bit harder to tell Niall that they’re going somewhere this time. 

The early LA heat is making the duvet stick to his legs and Louis is a furnace beside him as he curls closer. He kicks at the covers so there’s a wave of fresh air over their legs and Louis moans quietly into his mouth, pushing his thigh further between them so Niall can rock into the firmness of it. 

“Fuck,” Niall breathes damply into the curve of Louis’ neck where his hair is just beginning to stick to his skin. He mouths at the skin there, licking over the heat of it and nipping at it with his teeth. He can’t leave a mark, he knows he can’t but he has an urge to bite him until he’s red and he wants people will stare. Louis rocks into him, rolling his head back into the pillow so Niall can suck on his throat better. He throws his arm around Louis' waist on instinct, sliding his palm down until he can push the tips of his fingers under the waistband of his boxers. His skin is hot and soft and he forces his knuckles up so he can push the material away and palm at him properly. 

“Off,” Niall nearly orders and Louis smirks at him, eyes drooping slightly as he rolls onto his back and works his hips up. Niall helps him, clumsily pulling his pants down over his thighs and helping them over the juts of his knees and ankles until he can wing them off into the corner of the room. Louis laughs at him, a palm coming up to cup the curve of Niall’s side and Niall looks down at him, duvet pooling at his waist and Louis spread out in the sheets waiting for him. 

“Do you want to talk about it first?” Louis asks quietly, his free hand coming down to cup around his dick and Niall watches, nearly seeing before his very eyes as it fattens up on Louis’ belly under his palm. 

He doesn’t, he can feel his own dick twitch and stir and the tent in his underwear is going to get obscene in a minute so he wriggles out of them, kicking until the heavy duvet slides off the bed completely and he’s left with only Louis on the expanse of the mattress. 

“No,” he murmurs quietly, lying down again at his side. Louis grins at him across the pillows, still on his back but this time his hand is moving, a soft squeeze to the base of his dick while his fingers trail over a patch of his balls. Niall swallows. “It’s just -”

Louis nods, as if he knows already and gives himself a slow stroke, eyes trailing down over Niall’s body where his stomach heaves with his breathing and where his dick is growing up his tummy. 

“We’ll go slow?” Louis asks and Niall shrugs, jerky with a sudden unsureness that he puts down on the nerves. Louis smiles at him, rolling onto his side so he can reach over and splay a hand on Niall’s chest. 

“We’ll go fun,” he amends, pressing down on Niall’s chest and scraping his nails through the sparse spatter of hair there. He trails his hand down, never letting his gaze waver from Niall’s eyes until he gets to his dick, gentle teasing fingers closing around the length of him to give him a squeeze. 

Niall gasps out, hips rolling up minutely at the touch. He feels hot all of a sudden, skin tingling under Louis’ gaze and the prick of sweat at the nape of his neck. Louis tugs at him and Niall has to glance down to watch how his hand fits round him, squeezing and twisting, too dry, up and down. He swipes a thumb over the head and Niall groans again as he spreads the tiny amount of wetness over and down.

“Do you -” Niall gasps out because it’s too rough, just edging on painful and he doesn’t want that like this. Louis meets his eyes and Niall’s widen because he can hardly say it, shyness enveloping him out of nowhere. 

“What?” Louis asks quietly, hand stilling and that’s the _last_ thing he wants. He rolls his hips and gasps in another breath before opening his mouth because this is Louis, his best mate and now he has a hand on his dick. He can ask for a bit of lube if he wants it. 

“Do you have anything?” Apparently not. He closes his eyes, feeling fourteen again and Louis snuffles a laugh into his shoulder, biting down a bit before he pulls away, hand gone as he flops onto his back. 

Niall sucks in a breath, a sudden breather while Louis slides off the bed and goes over to where his bag is strewn all over the ground near the window. There’s watery light making its way through the curtains and it catches the side of Louis face, highlighting where he’s pink cheeked and down his body, a slide of bright light making his skin warm and inviting and Niall whines at the back of his throat because as much as he wants something slick on his dick, he’d rather Louis was beside him again. 

“Impatient,” Louis chastises but he upends his toiletry bag over the rug in a way that screams the opposite of calm and collected. He finds what he’s looking for, a small bottle in the middle of all the hotel shampoo he’s nicked from the entire west coast. He hesitates and from the bed Niall can’t tell what he’s doing. 

“Come on,” he whines again to cover the thread of panic sewing it’s way into his belly. He fists himself while he waits, rolling his hips up into his own hand and wishes it was Louis’ instead. Louis flashes him a grin over his shoulder before he stands up and Niall balks at the familiar foil packet in his other hand. 

“I -” he blurts out at the sight of it. Louis’ fingers clench and he flushes. He’s just experienced Louis hand on his dick for the first time and he’s not sure if he can push himself up to that just yet. 

“It was just a suggestion,” Louis says nearly immediately and drops it onto the edge of the bed where it doesn’t quite slide off the side of the sheets. “Always prepared and all that, sorry, I didn’t mean -”

“It’s fine,” Niall breathes out and holds out a hand to usher him onto the bed again. “Just - Going slow remember.” 

“Yeah,” Louis smiles at him and this time he settles in between Niall’s knees, forcing him to starfish a bit, spreading his thighs in a way that makes Niall blush at the intimacy of it all. Louis’ dick is hanging heavy between his legs and he flops down on top of Niall, pushing his nose along the edge of his jaw before he can kiss him slowly, licking into his mouth to make him forget about the suggestion of one of them getting fucked. Niall sighs into it, rocking up to meet Louis’ hips as he grinds shamelessly down into him. He runs a hand up the outside of his thigh, hiking his leg up so Niall can hook it over his hip and it opens him up a bit, sending an excited thrumming energy up Niall’s spine as he works his arse off the bed so Louis’ balls brush below his. 

“Never say never,” he whispers into Louis’ ear and then splutters into a laugh when Louis rears back to look at him, eyebrow cocked. 

“I’m choosing to believe that that isn’t a reference to Bieber,” he mutters, leaning back down to kiss him and then scrambling for the lube again. Niall snorts. It hadn’t meant to be but Louis is trying to hide a grin, biting his lip and everything so he doesn’t tell him anything different. 

He watches and for a moment it feels like he’s not there experiencing it, someone else is as Louis drizzles lube over his palm and reaches between them to stroke it up over him. Niall bucks up at the feel of it and Louis grins again. 

“Better?” he asks into his lips, biting at the bottom one before he kisses him again, tongue lapping messily between them as he finds a rhythm. Niall grunts, holding onto his hip to hold on as Louis grinds into the space between his legs. He pulls him closer with his heel behind Louis’ knee and groans as Louis slips between the cleft of his arse, unexpected and hot and hard. He twists on the upstroke and Niall arches his back, pushing his belly up to meet Louis’ chest, his other hand sliding down his hip so he can press his fingers into the flesh of Louis’ arse. 

Louis groans into his chin, licking at the sweat there and biting kisses down to his collarbone. He thumbs over Niall’s nipple and his mind spins but amongst the haze he registers the way Louis pushes back into his palm so he tightens his hold, pressing the pads of his fingers into his bum and pulling him apart slightly. 

“Fuck,” Louis groans, burying his forehead into the space between Niall’s neck and shoulder. “I want you to fuck me. Fuck me, Niall.” 

“Fuck,” Niall swears, grinding up into the slick of Louis’ hand and it’s all he needs to send him hurtling over the edge and coming in long spurts over Louis’ fist and up his stomach. “Shit,” Niall swears once he’s stopped twitching with the aftershocks of it. He definitely feels fourteen again. “Fuck, sorry.” 

Louis sniggers into his shoulder, pushing up with a hand beside his head to look down at him. “Well, that was unexpected.” 

“Christ,” Niall groans and tries to curl in on himself but Louis is still between his thighs and he can’t clamp them together without wrapping them around Louis’ hips. He feels a hand at his hip, smearing wetness there and then the hot pad of a tongue as it swipes through a dribble of come beside Niall’s bellybutton. Niall swears again, rearing his legs up uselessly and he clamps a hand over his eyes because fuck if that’s not hot. Louis laughs again but it sounds warmer and his expression is ridiculously fond when Niall cracks open an eyelid to look up at him again. 

“It’s fine,” Louis reassures him, falling back so he’s sitting between Niall’s legs, his knees bracketing Louis’. He fists himself, sighing at the feel of his fingers and Niall watches him from where he’s still all splayed out on display for him. Louis trails his eyes down him, lingering on the red of his mouth and the pale of his body to where his dick is still lying pudged up in the crease of his groin. 

“Can I -” Niall asks once the buzzing in his ears has fully died down and he’s pinched the inside of his bicep enough to ward off the sleepy feeling enveloping him. His limbs still feel heavy but he sits up so he’s mirroring Louis’ stance, thighs wide and he curls a hand around his dick. He’s still sensitive but he could probably work it up again and Louis grins at him again, leaning back on an arm before fully lying back over where the sheets are crumpled at the end of the mattress. 

“You can do whatever you want,” Louis murmurs and it sounds too much like an invitation to refuse. Niall wiggles himself onto his knees so he can lean over him, kissing him quickly on the lips where he catches just a hint of salt and citrusy lube. 

“Lemon?” Niall makes a face and Louis snorts again, reaching for it from where it’s trying to escape down the side of the footboard. “No,” Niall shakes his head, lips catching on day old stubble and it makes his knees tremble from where they’re straddled out over Louis’ hips. “I wanna suck you.” 

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, voice breathy as he abandons the lube and uses his hand to push at Niall’s shoulder. 

“Who’s being impatient now?” Niall asks, flashing him a grin and Louis groans, rocking up so Niall can feel how hard he is against his stomach. He brushes their dick’s together and Niall’s arms nearly give out at the too sensitive friction. 

“Tease,” Louis says fondly and Niall kisses him again, a hot press of tongue before he slides himself down the bed and settling between Louis’ knees. 

He’s never done this before, just imagined it in flashes and memorised it enough in porn to pretend he knows what he’s doing. He tries to think of what he likes when he’s got blowjobs in the past, quick presses of the mouth backstage after a show or a lingering flutter of tongue in a nameless city somewhere. 

“Breathe through your nose,” Louis tells him calmly, his palm coming up to smooth over his forehead and get his hair out of from where it’s falling over his eyes. Niall glances up and the panic he hadn’t really realised building in his belly dissipates almost immediately. He wants to ask Louis where he learnt all this but he’s too scared of the answer so he decides to bite the bullet and ducks down to press his lips against the top of his dick instead. 

There’s a something sharp tasting, the undertone of skin and salt and another hint of something lemon - he’s going to have to throw the lube out. He pushes his lips over the head, using the flat of his tongue and watching his teeth like he’s following a proper How-To guide and tangles his fingers around the base to cover where he’s not going to fit in his mouth because holy shit he never realised dicks were so big when you shoved one into your mouth. He has a new found respect for everyone who has did this to him before. 

Louis grunts above him and pushes his fingers into his hair, scratching at his scalp and Niall moans around him, dick jerking against the mattress as it shows it’s interest again. 

It’s not exactly how he imagined, his jaw aches more than he thought it would, stretching thickly around Louis as he sucks him down as best he can. He pushes his hand into the muscle of thigh beside him so he can feel the way it trembles and jerks when Louis moves his leg, squeezing them ever closer around Niall’s shoulders and curls his toes into the sheets when he inches his hips up into Niall’s mouth. 

He coughs around him a few times, tears pricking his eyes and the blush on his cheeks corresponding with a spike of embarrassment. He pulls off, breathes over where he’s wet and shiny and smiles when Louis squirms below him before he goes back down, mouth opening wide now that he’s getting more used to it. This time, he uses his tongue more so he can let his jaw go lax and give it a rest. 

Louis is making a string of undecipherable noises above him, pushed up on one elbow so he can see him properly and it makes Niall preen under his gaze, dick growing thick again at the thought of being watched while he does this. 

He gets only a swift tug of his ear in warning before Louis is spurting into his mouth and Niall pulls off quickly to catch the rest in his hand. He swallows roughly, not quite used to the taste before hurrying back into his haunches to get a hand on himself, spreading Louis leftover come to ease the way. Louis let's out a low groan, knees coming up to tighten around Niall’s hips even though he makes no attempt to move the rest of him. Niall strokes himself quickly and he’s sure he won’t be needing much more to get himself off even though he’s already come.

“Fuck,” Louis groans and his hands scramble down to help. He doesn’t move much from where he’s sprawled though so Niall shifts up his body, kneeing across the mattress until he can settle on his stomach, far enough up that he doesn’t sit on Louis softening cock. 

“You could fuck my mouth if you want,” Louis whispers to him and Niall groans, letting Louis fist around him as he keeps his concentration of keeping himself up, palms planted on Louis’ chest. “Just like this, feed your dick into my mouth. Or you could sit on my face.” 

Niall’s swears and he feels sort of dizzy. He’s too sensitive and he shivers, shoulders jerking with it as something twizzles out over this spine. He can’t take his eyes off Louis’ face, pink and sweaty, eyes wide and lips red around his obscene mouth.

“Hold onto the headboard while I lick you out,” Louis murmurs, fist twisting around his dick while the other slips under to fondle at his balls where they’re pulled up tight and then thumb at the skin behind them. 

Niall feels too hot, sweat slicking behind his knees where he’s folded on top of Louis’ chest. The muscles in his arms are straining and he can hardly hear Louis’ suggestive tone over the sudden rush of blood through his ears and the pounding of his pulse. 

“Lick all over you,” Louis saying, smile toying with his lips again but his fingers turn a bit frantic, picking up speed and Niall can only focus on the soft slap of skin. He feels deranged with it, there’s no way he’s going to come again and yet it’s all he wants, needs. “Suck on your rim and kiss your arse until you could take three of my fingers and -”

Niall’s arms give up as he comes, a sharp wave of pressure curling in his belly and exploding out through his groin before he’s coming over Louis’ chest again, spattering white up over his neck and chin. Niall’s jaw drops and he has no idea what sort of noise comes out of his mouth because his mind can’t get over the feeling curling below his belly.

Louis laughs brilliantly, stroking him through the little jerks of aftershocks and braces his other hand on his shoulder, lowering Niall easily down onto his chest. 

Niall’s still twitching and gasping tiny breaths when Louis kisses him, chastely and sweet again on the lips. He tries to locate some pillows but Niall doesn’t care, he’s fine where he is, half sprawled over Louis and it’ll have to do because he’s already falling asleep, thigh’s buzzing and heart still pounding but giving into the overwhelming urge to slip under. 

 

Niall wakes up properly, hours later when the sun has properly risen and is blinding through the curtains. He lies there, sticky and crusted and sated in the ruined sheets. He’s upside down and can only see the back wall and headboard of the bed but he lies there, frozen because the rest of the bed is empty. 

His heart squeezes and he has a fleeting moment where he thinks he’s fucked it all up again, just when he and Louis were starting to be back to normal again he’s went had a few mind blowing orgasms with his best mate and ruined the band. 

“Having a nightmare?” Louis’ voice asks and he pops into his vision. Niall hadn’t realised he had made a noise but Louis just grins at him, hair soft and fluffy and damp from the shower he’s just had. He’s wearing one of Niall’s shirts, the yellow one that used to be Harry’s and it doesn’t stretch over his shoulders the way it should, gaping at the neckline and making him look softer around the edges, yellow glowing bright up against his chin like a buttercup. “Earth to Niall?” 

“Hi,” Niall says quietly and his eyes widen at the sound of his voice, rough from sleep and sex and it all floods back making him feel warm where he’s tangled in the sheets. 

“Hi yourself,” Louis grins at him and leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. “You need to shower, I mean really you do.” 

Niall giggles and sprawls out across the bed, stretching out and giggling as Louis trails his eyes over him, appraising him with a grin. 

“I ordered breakfast, it should be up by the time you’re done.” 

“Aw Lou,” Niall groans at the thought of bacon sandwiches and orange juice to wash away the taste in his mouth. “I love you, that sounds great.” 

Louis stops where he’s picking up all his crap that’s strewn across the room and Niall looks up from where he’s trying to untangle himself from the last top sheet. It was flippant and he has no problem in saying it but his next words get caught his throat as he watches Louis’ smile turn soft.

“I love you too, Niall.” 

Niall grins at him because even though they say it all the time and they still have so much to talk about. It means so much more now.

**Author's Note:**

> concrit is always appreciated :)


End file.
